Acceptable losses
by Lotten
Summary: DH SPOILERS. Harry was trying to find the story of the man that loved his mother. He did. But he also found the story of another, a story of obsession, betrayal and revenge. Severus, the marauders and the betrayal fom a different point of view.
1. In the years that passed

A/N: Yes, yes, I know, I _know,_ it's bad to start new projects when you have old ones to finish (especially if you also have a ton of homework waiting for you) but it's very hard to resist. And with some of my fics on a definite hold, and others under slow construction, I have to have something to amuse my school-wearied mind with.

Oh, I should warn you: THERE WILL BE BIG, UGLY DEATHLY HALLOWS-SPOILERS, so if you haven't read it… well, if you read this fic and get spoiled, you'll just have yourself to blame, now won't you?

And there WILL be slash. There almost always is. But this storyline is sort of built on a relationship, and this relationship happens to be of the slash kind.

Other than that… angst galore, my friends. This is nothing you want to read if you're already depressed. I get depressed by writing it, so… yeah.

Here goes:

* * *

**Acceptable ****losses** by Lisa Miskovsky 

_"Main street's empty in the evening chill  
From courthouse tower to griffin mill  
Small signs of winter comes creeping down the hills_

_I saw your shadow on Jackson Street  
where the zombie-eyed kids and the speed-queens meet  
It's been a long time running through my veins this long lost dream_

_And I tear it apart and I burn it all down 'cause I have to  
God gave me permission to do what it takes to find you_

_All the friends I betrayed all the enemies made in the process  
We've all done the same we're just carrying different crosses  
I'm feeling no pain baby - it's acceptable losses_

_This place got dark in the years that passed  
The store-fronts blown I guess nothing lasts  
The fighting at the bars still draw wired vengeful crowds_

_I followed our trail down to Rosewood Park  
As the shadows grow tall and the stars come out  
Were the backseat lovers used to park their daddy's cars_

_And I tear it apart and burn it all down 'cause I have to  
Made a deal with a man at the crossroads who knew where to find you_

_All the friends I betrayed all the enemies made in the process  
Our pain feels the same we're just carrying different crosses  
It's all in the game baby - it's acceptable losses_

_They found your car own at Suicide Bridge  
Where the Johnson twins became newsflash kids  
But I know you so much better don't believe you'd call it quits_

_Now I got an old address and I'm waiting there  
In the first light of morning at the fire stairs  
I can hear someone's coming and suddenly I'm scared_

_'Cause you ripped me apart and I ran for my life 'cause I had to  
My heart won't stop bleeding and I'm no longer sure if I want it to_

_All the friends I betrayed all the enemies made in the process  
They're all going down in a accounts of acceptable losses  
It's all in the game baby - it's acceptable losses"_

* * *

**Chapter One**

**In the years that passed**

The ministry searched through Severus Snape's house at Spinner's End after the murder of Albus Dumbledore. However, they soon found there was nothing there that could give a clue of where he now was hiding, or what his plans were, or any proof of the assumed murder he had committed. Anyone with even the slightest acquaintance to Severus would've known that he would never be so sloppy, but apparently it was quite fashionable among Ministry officials to underestimate the enemy nowadays. So they looked for orders from the Dark Lord, and letters from other Death Eaters, but none where found (which is not to say that there weren't any…). And so they were just as disappointed as Severus' friends and enemies alike would've guessed. Only faint hints of the personality of the man could be scavenged from the home, at least for the untrained eye. Severus Snape had known discipline of his own self that few could even ever begin to understand, because he knew exactly how vulnerable you could became by letting just one single person close.

Frustrated, the Ministry people confiscated the books and potion samples they could find, along with whatever objects with magical properties they could lay their hands on. Poor pickings, but at least they could pretend that they had managed something constructive. And back at the Ministry, they looked through all the Potion's and Dark Arts books to find something – anything – that could give them any clues. Once again, they were empty-handed.

And so was Harry Potter at first, as he looked through these archived artefacts at the end of the war. Among all the things that had been considered important and dangerous, nothing contained any trace of the man he had learned to care about and respect only when he was already dead. It wasn't until he opened the few books that the Ministry officials hadn't deigned to look through, deeming them to be nothing but pleasure reading, that he actually found anything of real importance.

On the last, blank page in a battered copy of _Candide_ he found a sketch of his mother's face. In _Anna Karenina_ he found some old and rather ill-spelled letters from Lily; writing had obviously not been her strong side. But when he tried to open the oldest book in the collection, with a cover so worn that it was impossible to make out the title, his finger was cut open and started to bleed.

"Ouch!" He pulled his hands away and stared at the blood. The book glowed red for a moment – a warning – and then once more looked like any old and much loved book. Okay, so that didn't work. Harry tapped it experimentally with his wand, and almost jumped through the wall when the book suddenly spoke.

"_Where does it all begin and end?_" The voice of Severus Snape sounded hard and forbidding.

"Lily Evans" Harry replied. He guessed, but he guessed right. This time, the book glowed green, and swung open before him.

"_TRAITOR._"

Harry once more jumped, terrified. That had not been Snape's voice, had it? It had happened so fast that he didn't know whose voice it was, but he was quite sure it hadn't been Snape's. Besides, why 'traitor'? He supposed that he could've meant that Lily was a traitor. But the voice was directed at the person that opened the book. Had Snape seen himself as a traitor? Okay, so it was possible, but if that was the case then he wouldn't have needed a book to remind him. Maybe one of the Death Eaters had known about Snape's feelings for Harry's mother? But why hadn't they spilled the beans for Voldemort? No, it didn't make sense.

He looked down on the title page. In faded ink, the words _'For Severus Snape on his eleventh birthday. Congratulations. Lily"_ were painstakingly spelled out. It was a copy of _Alice in Wonderland, _and the page was adorned with a picture of the white rabbit, poring over his pocket watch and looking nervous. The drawing was a good one; you could almost see the rabbit tapping his big, white foot; you could almost make yourself believe that the floppy ears had twitched the moment you looked away.

The pages were yellowed with age and frayed from frequent use. Harry imagined his stern Professor Snape sitting down with a cup of cocoa and this book, curling up in a big armchair with a thick blanket around his knees. The image made him smile, and it was with this smile still on his lips that he turned the page.

It was with a somewhat faltering smile that he watched a thick stack of letters dropping into his lap. They could never have fitted between the pages of the rather small volume, but somehow the space where they had been tucked looked bigger than it possibly could be. Harry suspected that it was a version of the Extension Charm that Hermione had put on her bag.

Carefully putting the book aside, he picked up the letters. They were wrapped with a simple linen thread, tied in a neat little bow, and there must've been at least twenty fat envelopes. On the topmost letter someone had scribbled _'Severus'_, apparently in a hurry. More letters from his mother? But no. Whoever wrote this had a gently flowing hand – really quite pleasant – and not the zigzag scrawl of Lily Evans.

So who, then, had sat down to write Severus Snape all these letters? Carefully making a clean cut in the first envelope with his wand, Harry pulled out the first sheet of paper, and started to read.

* * *

_Severus_

_I don't think you think much about our time together, not even now, when we cannot avoid each other's presence. I think you've almost forgotten, that you only can remember how much you hate me, how much you wish that you could've changed what happened. I think you lie awake at night, wishing you had stopped me. You probably blame yourself; you probably really __believe__ that you could've made a difference._

_But while you __should__ blame yourself, blame yourself mercilessly, rest assured that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, you could've done. As with everyone else, it was your underestimating of me that finally made it impossible for you to see the danger. And not until it was by far too late did you understand._

_But what I really want to have said is that __I__ think about it, all the time; that short time when I actually allowed myself to dream. While you dreamed of her, I dreamed of you, and we made each other's dreams impossible._

_I wonder if you ever asked yourself why. If you knew me well enough back then to know that to say that I wanted to be friends with the nastiest bully on the playground is a far too simple explanation. Then again, I already know you underestimated me. So maybe the thought never crossed your mind that there was something far uglier, far deeper and more unpleasant, behind it all._

_There was. There is. And the thought won't leave me any peace as I live here like an illness that's slowly infecting your already pale and bloodless life; just as wanted, just as greedy in my wish to devour everything that's you. I think that we both can agree that there is nothing left for me to live for. Your emptiness left in you a purpose; mine left in me dark lethargy and a terrible fear of death, of emptiness even deeper and hungrier._

_What all these words are trying to form is a wish for you to know __my__ part of the story, a wish I can no longer repress, nor do I even particularly want to. You will probably want to kill me when you've read it, for my story makes it far too easy to place all the blame on me. But maybe I will kill you first, for when I've told you this story I might not love you anymore. If I still do, I will run away, and this time nobody will ever find me again. And I suppose that will make me as good as dead. Or as bad._

_If you died today, you would not think of me, not even for a moment. That is why I have to write this._

_Peter_

* * *

Harry stared at the letter in his hands, his mind blank and his body quite numb from shock and incomprehension. Slowly, he put the piece of parchment away, leaning his head in his hands as his thoughts starting to churn with terrible momentum, faster and faster and faster. 

He had found a part of Severus' life that he hadn't known of, a part of it that probably would make him understand the man better. That was what he had been looking for. That was what he had been _craving_ since he had seen the last, vulnerable thoughts of Severus Snape played in front of his eyes. But this wasn't what he had been hoping to find! With disgust he watched the writing that crawled black and spindly across the whiteness of parchment. It didn't look so appealing anymore, as he imagined Pettigrew's stubby fingers holding the quill, dipping it in the ink, slowly tracing the letters and forming these damning sentences.

He didn't want to have his memory of another hero tarnished, yet the episode of Dumbledore had taught him not to judge by what the first impression seemed to indicate. And he had already read too much to resist finding out what kind of story these letters would tell.

Picking up the second piece of paper, he gritted his teeth and allowed the last tale to be told about the time of Heroes.

* * *

Peter hung back, more from habit than anything else. Oh, well, that wasn't really true. The _real_ reason was that he was pathetically shy and didn't dare to sit by the bar, and even more impossible was the thought of dancing. No, not him, not Peter. That wasn't how things worked. So he took his drink – which was far too strong for him anyway and he probably wouldn't dare to drink it – and found himself a table in a shadowed part of the pub. He didn't even know why he was there, all alone, when he knew that he would rather chew of his left arm than face the indignity of trying fruitlessly to chat up one of the strangers in here, none of whom would ever dream of being interested in someone that was fat, unattractive and socially incompetent. 

He just knew that for one evening, he had fancied feeling just a bit brave. Wearing one of the pink badges _was_ brave. It was admitting what he was to people he didn't know or trust, something he had never done before. As a matter of fact, he had never let anyone at all know before.

The system with the badges had been invented on this very club when the clever owner noticed the embarrassing situations that sometimes occurred when someone tried to chat up a boy or a girl with the wrong kind of sexuality, and it had pretty soon spread to quite a lot of wizarding pubs. Girls interested in boys wore red badges; girls interested in girls wore blue. Boys interested in girls wore green badges and boys interested in boys wore pink. Those open to suggestion wore purple.

Remus preferred being home with a book to going out drinking. Sirius and James were in Austria skiing with James' parents. Peter ran no risk of being found out. Nobody else from school would recognise him; it wasn't as if anyone ever noticed him. Or so he thought, until he heard an unfriendly chuckle behind his back and someone drawled "Pettigrew? Oh, this is too wonderful…"

He spun around, his cheeks already colouring and his heart beating madly, only to be pinned by a pair of black eyes; a trapped butterfly against the back of his chair, fluttering madly but getting nowhere.

"S-snape! What… you… I…"

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. And with a _pink_ badge, too. Really, what would your friends say if they knew?"

"W-what's it to you?" Peter answered, not quite managing to keep the desperation out of his voice, scrambling franticly for words. "I… You are… Well, it's not like you're much better, is it?" He only just now noticed the purple badge that was pinned to Severus' chest, glowing faintly in the semi-darkness.

Snape didn't appear to have heard him. He leaned forward, his hands gripping tightly around the backrest of the chair, his eyes narrowing in malicious glee. "They _don't_ know, do they? You're too much a coward to tell. You're afraid they won't want to be friends with you anymore. You're afraid they'll think that you're disgusting, aren't you? They probably would. You probably _are._"

It was horrible, much more horrible because it was true. Peter shrank back, but he couldn't escape with Snape blocking the way. Closing his eyes, he hoped to shut out that venomous stare, but it burned straight through his eyelids and into his brain, making a dark hole that quickly filled up with shame and humiliation and numb, thoughtless frustration. Why did it have to be _him_? Of all the people in the world that he could be hopelessly in love with – for there was no hope for him, not with anyone – it had to be Severus Snape, a person who loathed everything that he was, and who took pleasure in tormenting him. Righteous pleasure too.

But sometime in his fourth or fifth year, Peter had more crashed than fallen in love with Severus Snape. Maybe it was the awkward way Snape moved, or the graceful dance of his fingers when he was making potions. Maybe it was the way his forehead wrinkled when he concentrated, or the way he would hum softly to himself when he though no one could hear him. Maybe it was the prideful way his eyes would burn and his mouth would twist when he was angry; maybe the sardonic and warm smile he sometimes bestowed on his friends. Peter didn't know, for he had tried very hard not to analyse the feeling, hoping it would go away if he ignored it. Hoping in vain, of course.

He opened his eyes when he both heard and felt how Snape's body slid into the chair next to his. The other boy was leaning his sharp chin in his hands and watching Peter with eyes that shone like the blackest of pearls. Those thin lips – they must be so warm, they must be so soft – were still curled to form a sharp little crescent moon of derisiveness.

"Please, just let me be" he pleaded feebly, hating himself for how his voice hitched, giving away the tears that he was trying so hard to choke back.

"No. I don't think I will." He had a voice like silk, smooth and cold, and he wrapped it around Peter's throat, gently tightening the noose. It was impossible to talk, very hard to breathe, and when he tried to busy himself by taking a deep gulp of his drink he almost choked on it.

"This is too much fun" Snape purred.

And Peter didn't know why he reacted like he did, if it was because he was angry and humiliated and hurt, or if it was the sudden rush of alcohol to his head, or just the noise of the pub and Snape's voice and the sudden deepening darkness around him making him panic. When he tried to recall it, it was all like a dream; there was some logical step missing, some part of reasoning that was obscured. All he could remember for sure was how a small, angry tear had freed itself and slunk shamefully down his cheek, and as Snape laughed with almost childish delight, his boneless anger became white-hot and steel-encased fury. He lashed out with his hand, catching Snape under the chin with a backhand blow and then, when Snape staggered backwards out of his chair, he shot after him with the energy of an avenging angel. And before he could stop himself, before he could even understand what this sudden madness was doing to him, his arms had shot up Severus' back, trailing the snaking, dangerous spine, pulling himself closer to that cage of bone where he knew that the heart of the other boy banged itself sore in hopes of freedom…

He kissed him. He was angry and he was in tears, he was full of violence and blood and the screams of animals, he was insane, he was out of his mind, he was kissing Severus Snape and Snape was…

…Snape was kissing him back. As if his life depended on it.

He tasted of alcohol, quite strongly so. Peter had only drunk that one gulp of the drink that was now a quickly spreading, sticky red puddle amidst a thousand shards of broken glass, but he had a feeling that Snape more than a bit drunk right now. And this was probably a very bad idea, surely it was just alcohol and shock that had saved him from Severus' wrath, surely that was all there was to this kiss. Alcohol and shock and surprise and fury and sorrow and disappointment and a longing so sweet, so perfect…

They backed away from each other for a moment, stood panting and sweating, staring dumbly and trying to read each other's minds. Peter was so nervous that a taste of bitter gall snuck its way into his mouth.

And then Snape looked away, grabbing Peter's arm and squeezing it roughly with steely white fingers. "I know a place we can go" he said.

* * *

Snape had told him that they were in a friend's apartment, and Peter couldn't figure out why he was frightened. But being in this place, all alone with someone he didn't trust, kissing him as they lay entwined in bed that smelled strange, in a room that was dark and unfamiliar… It gave him a feeling of that it wasn't real, or perhaps that he had stepped out of his life, of his time, of the world he knew, floundering helplessly with only one person to hold on to, a person that now looked like a stranger.

And then there were cold hands against his skin, softly probing. He wanted to pull away, because he suddenly realised that he was ugly and unattractive and if Snape touched him he must notice and… But no, now the hands were pulling his robe up, trying urgently to remove it, and Peter had no choice but to squirm clumsily out of it. His breath hitched and hitched again, as his underwear went the same way. Snape somehow managed to free himself of his own clothes at the same time, and Peter turned his head away with a whimper. He wanted to tell the other boy that it was because he was beautiful, that it was unbearable to handle, that something inside him hurt to see that beauty so close, like staring at the sun. But he couldn't, the words stuck in his throat with his breath and that soft, wonderful tongue that was once more there, opening him, choking him, teasing him, hurting him.

They pressed their bodies together, didn't know what to do, but none of them dared speak, none dared break that terrible silence that was made from ragged breath and pounding hearts and the noise of the street outside. It was humiliating, terribly humiliating; floundering and fumbling and trying to touch without touching. Finally, a long-fingered hand braved the distance and wrapped itself around a part of Peter that he very rarely even acknowledged. Whimpering, he fell back against the bed, boneless by the sudden wave of something that was both pleasure and pain, unable to hold back as his body thrashed once, twice. He came within ten seconds, tears streaming down his face as he frantically gasped for air.

He didn't know how long time he spent trying to coax the faintly moaning Snape to come, using his mouth and his tongue and his hands. Finally, all it took was a kiss. As their lips met, Snape closed his eyes and arched his body against Peter's. Skin slid against skin almost seamlessly, their skin slick with sweat. Peter heard small, shuddering gasp from pale lips turned red as they had kissed each other bloody; Snape's body formed a rigid arch for a trembling second, and then he fell back against the sheets, shaking as if exhausted. Still, they said nothing, just huddled closer together for warmth and for comfort.

Later, as Peter was drifting off to sleep, he could still hear Snape breathing in shallow gasps, as if suddenly afraid of what he had done.

* * *

…_That was the first time, for me and for you alike. Two terrified virgins clutching each other for dear life, yet barely daring to touch, to come close, fearing rejection as we had scarcely feared anything before. We didn't know what to do; we had to learn as we went along, anxiously trying to read each other's reactions in the dark. It really very bad, as sex goes, but it was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Yes, that was what I thought. Or no, it was what I __believed__, so intensely that it actually hurt me to think of it. I was very foolish back then, I admit._

_And even if I came much too quickly, and you had problems coming at all, I was in bliss as I fell asleep, my body awkwardly angled in that small, small bed. I had never dared to hope for anything like that, and never even dared to dream about you in that way; the closest I had ever gotten was shameful little half-dreams, crippled fantasies alone in my bed as I twisted futilely against the sheets and pitied myself._

_Now, I allowed myself for the first time to confess aloud – to the empty darkness and the soft sound of your breathing – that yes, I loved you. Only in a whisper, but it was still put to words, and that was what mattered._

* * *

Harry put away the parchment on the table, shuddering with revulsion. Reading it had been like watching a movie being played inside his head, and he really wished he hadn't. He couldn't imagine what had made Snape do that with someone that all logic suggested that he should loath. Harry was sure as hell that if Malfoy had done that to _him_, he would've punched his lights out. The thought of anyone having sex with Peter Pettigrew was revolting; the thought of Snape having it was upsetting and _wrong_. 

He stood up and closed _Alice in Wonderland_, putting all the books back where he had found them with a quick wave of his wand. But as he walked out of the Ministry building, the weight of the letters in his pocket throbbed like an ache.


	2. Running through my veins

**Chapter 2**

**Running through my veins**

* * *

"Did you find anything?" Hermione asked. Her anxious brown eyes, her pale forehead and her riot of brown hair were the only things visible above the thick volume she was reading. Realising after the war that she had been without education for a whole year, she had – of course – panicked. At least until Ron mildly pointed out that the Ministry _had_ decided to declare the last year at Hogwarts invalid due to the circumstances, so she hadn't really missed anything, _nor_ was she likely to be expelled. And sure enough, their Hogwarts letters arrived with owlpost like they always had, and Hermione had set to work with learning everything she needed to know before the year had even started.

Not that she needed it, of course. She had been declared a hero along with Harry and received the Order of Merlin, first class; there was no place in the whole Wizarding World where she would be turned down if she came looking for a job, no university or college that would frown upon her lack of grades. But what did that matter to Hermione? _She_ would never feel qualified enough if she hadn't left school with straight O's for her NEWTs. She had explained this with such earnestness in her voice that Ron had laughed fondly and tickled her, calling her nitpicky and obsessive, but Harry could understand what she meant.

Nonetheless, he wasn't sure he wanted to go back. How was he supposed to cope, walking the corridors again, remembering the people who died there… Reliving over and over again those few, brutal seconds when Fred was blasted out of their lives forever… Seeing the shadows of the dead on the floors that could never be washed clean of the faint scent of blood…

And how could he ever walk into the Potion's classroom without seeing the empty space that Severus Snape had left behind? How was he supposed to ever be able to walk past the door to the Headmaster's office without that surge of frustration, that bitter and desperate longing for _more time_?

There was always so little time, it seemed.

No time for him to remember with his parents. No time with Sirius before he too was swept away. No time for Tonks and Remus and their son to be a family. No time for Fred to ever become more than a youth. No time for Harry to get to know Albus Dumbledore as he felt he ought to have done. No time to tell Snape… something. Anything. Whatever it took for him not to hate Harry, or rather the bitter loneliness of his that Harry personified by being the ultimate testimony of that it was James, and not him; always and for ever James, and not him…

Harry shook his head; he was tired, wanted to sleep.

"Nothing?" Hermione said, looking sympathetic. Harry jumped, remembering where he was.

"What? Oh, yes, some things. Letters. From… my mother. Letters from her."

"Well, that's nice, isn't it? What were they like?"

Harry smiled bleakly and sat down. "Badly spelled, for starters. She wrote most of them during a winter holiday, when she was at home with her parents and Snape was staying at Hogwarts. She was fourteen then. I don't think she was very fond of writing, for except those written that winter there weren't very many letters. I suppose, since they lived quite close to each other, there wasn't any real need to write."

Hermione had closed her book while he was speaking, and now tilted her head gently as she watched him attentively. "Anything else?"

"A sketch of her face. And one of the books that were confiscated was from her." Harry tried to sound offhand, but didn't fully manage. However small, these were still traces of his mother's life, and the life of a man that loved her. The excitement that came with these findings was however somewhat dampened by the largest of his finds. He wished he hadn't opened _Alice in Wonderland _in the first place, and still he was somehow glad he had. And that didn't make sense at all, but then, neither did what he had read in those letters so far. The only way of finding out what he felt about them was to read more.

"So, what aren't you telling me, Harry Potter?" Hermione was giving him a shrewd look and drumming her fingers against the table.

"What?" Harry had a feeling that his attempt to look innocent wouldn't win any awards, for Hermione only sighed and shook her head.

"It's fine if you don't want to tell me, Harry," she said patiently, "but you should know better than trying to trick me that there is nothing troubling you. I've spent far too many years trying to figure out when something is upsetting you to be fooled, you know."

Harry pulled a sour face and rested his head in his hands. "Yes, thank you, a pair of less perceptive best friends would be nice" he muttered to the world in general.

"You'd really choose to call Ronald 'perceptive'?" Hermione asked, amused.

"Okay, okay. Point taken. One less perceptive friend, then."

She laughed, but it was a kind sort of laugh, and her eyes were warm and concerned. "I hope you'll tell me what's bothering you, Harry," she said solemnly. "Not now, perhaps, but later. Whenever you feel up to it."

Harry nodded. "I will. It's just… I want to know everything, before… I wouldn't want… Knowing only parts of it would give an unjust view on… a lot of things. I think. I'm sorry, I'm rambling, but…"

"No, it's alright Harry, I understand. You don't want me to draw the wrong conclusions, right?"

"Something like that."

"You mean… like you did with Dumbledore?"

"That wasn't necessary."

"Wasn't it?"

Harry tried to scowl, but it turned into a resigned grin. "I suppose it might've been. A little."

"Well, whenever you feel ready, as I said. I wouldn't want to have my prior view of Snape re-established unless he really deserves it."

She meant it as a joke, he could see that. A way to cheer him up. So he smiled at her because that was what she expected, and wondered how he was ever going find a good way to explain what he had read so far. 'Oh, incidentally, Snape was also shagging Pettigrew,' _didn't_ sound like a good way of putting it.

Unfortunately, it was still true.

* * *

Later that night, Harry was sprawled on his bed in Ron's room. Mr and Mrs Weasley were talking about adding some rooms to the house, so that Harry'd have a room of his own while he stayed there. Harry, not wanting to put them to inconvenience, had pointed out that he had tons of gold in his vault, even more now after all the ceremonial gifts he had received for 'Services to the Wizarding Society'. He could afford to find a place of his own. But they had flatly refused to listen, and Harry realised that they actually wanted him there.

He wondered what they were going to do with the boarded-up room. If they were just going to keep it the way it was. Nobody liked going in there, seeing the two empty beds. George wouldn't even go up the stairs; he slept in the sitting-room. He wouldn't go back to the shop either. He wouldn't do anything at all. He spent the days wandering the countryside, and everyone tried as much as possible to avoid him. Nobody knew what to say, because there wasn't anything you _could_ say.

Still, as it was, Harry slept in Ron's room. This might've presented a problem at the moment, but thankfully enough Ron was a heavy sleeper, and it didn't take long from that he put his head on the pillow until soft snores started to issue from his bed. As soon as he was sure that Ron was sound asleep, Harry rummaged through a pile of dirty laundry where he had hidden the letters. He stared at them for a while, reluctant to start reading. So far, what he had found in those letters had been very unpleasant, even rather disturbing. He imagined that it wasn't going to get any better.

Nonetheless…

Sighing, he extracted a new piece of parchment and unfolded it. Then he spent some minutes meticulously smoothing out every single crease in the paper, before he finally dared to read it.

The writing was in another kind of ink now; this had probably been written on another occasion. But it was the same flowing handwriting, and it picked up the story more or less where it had been left…

* * *

_As you know, I didn't tell my friends about what had happened during the winter holiday. How could I? They didn't even know about my inclinations towards men, and they certainly didn't know about my crush on you. I kept things like that to myself even in normal cases, and what had happened with you was __special__. I couldn't tell a living soul._

_Don't imagine it was easy. Whatever you might've thought about them, __I__ loved my friends, I trusted them, and I was sure they trusted me. I suppose this was the first betrayal of trust you inspired in me._

_What I did wasn't lying; it was worse than that. Lying would have been better than not saying anything at all. And at the beginning, that was all I could think about. Slowly, as the days went by, I learnt to cope with it, little by little, but right then you decided to enter my life once more._

_You have to understand that up to that moment I was convinced that whatever we had that night ended the following morning. When I came back to Hogwarts, you didn't even look at me once. Thus I assumed that you didn't want to have anything to do with me; you probably regretted that night and wanted to forget about it. And while that hurt me, it didn't surprise me. Nothing had really changed. Or so I thought._

* * *

It was rather late in the evening, and Peter was returning from two humiliating hours of Remedial Transfiguration. The only reason he had managed to scrape an E at the OWLs was that there had been so many questions concerning morphing of the own body on the theoretical exams. That was the only part of Transfiguration that he had even the vaguest grasp on. He began to wish that he hadn't signed up for the NEWT class, but in a small attack of misdirected pride he had decided that he would stand yet another year of the hated subject rather than being the only one of the four of them to give it up.

Of course, _they_ didn't understand that. James would just roll his eyes and mutter that it was his own fault, so stop whining about it; Sirius teased him about it and said that he must be the first Animagus ever to flunk on a Transfiguration test; Remus looked faintly bemused, and tried to help him the best he could, even though it was obvious that he thought it was rather pointless. Peter couldn't blame him. McGonagall was obviously convinced that he was a hopeless case, and rather stupid too. At least Remus didn't question his intelligence – or if he did, he hid it well.

Peter knew he wasn't stupid. He might be ugly, awkward and fumbling – he _knew_ he was _that_ – but he wasn't stupid. And he wasn't completely incompetent at every subject. It was just that compared to James and Sirius, who were naturally good at everything they did, and Remus, who studied until he was at least as good… well, he came up rather short. Literally. And unfortunately for Peter, being their friend meant that you were _constantly_ being compared to them.

And there his train of thought was interrupted, as he was suddenly slammed with incredible force into the wall. Blue-black flowers danced across his eyes and he felt someone holding him in a vice-grip, strong, hard fingers pushing him against the cold stone of the walls. He struggled against whoever it was holding him, but he might as well have tried to wrestle Time itself, so instead he opened his mouth to scream. And was shocked into absolute stillness as a warm, greedy mouth was closed over his, a clever tongue darting in to touch his.

When the kiss ended he stared in silence up at Snape, who in turn smirked at him. The dark eyes were dancing, no doubt laughing at the strange mixture of admiration, surprise and terror that Peter couldn't keep from his gaze.

"We meet again, little mouse," he mumbled softly, and against his will a small smile made Peter's lips twitch.

'Little mouse,' indeed!

"S-so it would seem." He wished he had just half of Snape's self-control! But he might as well wish that he was tall and handsome; it amounted to about the same thing. He swallowed hard. "I… I thought…" But he didn't know how to explain that he had been sure that Snape would never look at him, except to curse him, ever again.

"Did you?" Snape asked loftily. "Was it very painful?" He was staring down at Peter with a strange, predatory expression carved upon the rough features of his face, and Peter felt himself blushing. But he could not turn his gaze away.

Peter knew that most people considered Snape ugly, and he could see what they meant. But Snape went right through the definitions of ugliness and came out on the other side, earning some strange kind of beauty from the forbidding harshness of his exterior. There was a sort of dark attraction in his skeletal body, his deathly paleness, the neglected black hair, the chilling darkness of his eyes. He appealed to the eye as did a wild and dangerous thing; like a wolf, or a range of rugged, sharp cliffs; like the edge of a knife, or the blinding light that followed a curse.

"I… Why?" Peter hated himself for asking that question, but he had to know. "I mean… you hate me, don't you?" _And even if you didn't…__ Why me? Look at me. When there's everyone else, why me?_

Snape shrugged. "Well, you're one of _them_ aren't you? I might as well ask why _you_ kissed _me_."

_Because I love you, you idiot.__ And I'm sure as hell that you don't love me. _"I… wanted it," was all he could manage.

"All of it?" Snape breathed, leaning closer, and Peter both winced and pulled closer, at the same time drawn and repelled.

"…yes. All of it." He blushed, amazed at what he was saying, or rather that he dared to say it. Snape's hot breath over his face made him shiver and his body to react violently. He tried to squirm away, so Snape wouldn't notice. But the other boy smirked cruelly at him, and Peter stiffened in shock as he felt a hand grip roughly at his crotch.

"And you still want it, I see."

Peter couldn't answer, only gasp and squirm, and as the last strength went out of his limbs he sagged against the wall, his eyes fluttering close.

"I can do anything I want to you right now," Snape mused, and there was a cruel edge to his voice. "I could hex you so badly that you'd have to stay here all night. And when they ask me why you didn't run away… I could tell the truth…"

Peter forced his eyes open, forced himself to stare into the wall of inscrutable darkness that was all he could see in the other boy's eyes. "You won't," he whispered.

"Won't I? Indeed. And why is that?"

"Because then," he swallowed, his mouth dry, "you would lose the power you have over me now." Although still pleasurable, Snape's grip was tightening and becoming increasingly painful; yet he stood still, seduced by the fierceness in the other boy's expression. The black eyes were roving over his face, searching for something, and for a short second Peter imagined that he could actually see an ever so faint shadow of bewilderment. But a second later, there was yet again nothing but blackness, empty as the sky, deep as a grave. Thin, white lips curled into a smirk.

"My, my. It actually thinks," Snape whispered and though his voice was mocking, his countenance was more relaxed. His fingers loosened their grip and slid upward to rest against Peter's neck, lifting his face to be examined. "Who would've guessed? But a lack of spine obviously does not mean that there is a lack of brain."

Peter blushed, yet he would not avert his gaze, but tried through it to throw all the defiance he could muster back at Snape. _This one thinks,_ he thought, _but does the other one feel?_

And then, suddenly, Snape let go of him. Peter immediately lost his balance, stumbling to his hands and knees. He heard footsteps echo in the corridor, as Snape strode away.

"Wait." He had meant it to be a shout, but it came out as a whisper. Nonetheless, the footfalls stopped, and as Peter looked up he saw Snape standing a bit down the corridor, his back still to him.

"There will be time later," he said, his voice so soft that Peter had to strain his ears to hear it. "I have to go now."

He continued down the corridor, looking impossibly graceful for someone who usually moved with all the awkwardness of an overgrown bug. Peter didn't dare call after him again, or try to catch up with him. So he got slowly to his feet and set off in the opposite direction, even if that meant going the long way round.

And as he felt his bruised body ache, his heart lifted with joy.

_He came back to me!_

_

* * *

_

_You came back to me. Why? Maybe it really was the power you had over me. I know you liked to think so. But there was another intention, another reason, wasn't there? And I don't think you ever let go of it with your mind, not even for one second. It was always there, just barely hidden beneath the surface. If I had looked for the signs, they would've been painfully obvious._

_I didn't. I trusted you, because I wanted to trust you. I wanted so badly for you to feel what I felt, and so I imagined that you did. I spun frail dreams around us to make the person that was me more appealing, more likeable, more like an idea of me than an actual human being. You were supposed to lift me up, to take me out of the person I was. And it is true that I was a fool to believe that you would fulfil my every expectation, but it would take long for me to find out just how foolish._

_Right then, right there, I saw how the impossibility of love was suddenly made possible, and the air around me positively shimmered with the castles that my dreams built._

* * *

Harry swallowed hard, stuffing the letter back in the envelope. This just couldn't be right. It had to be a lie. He had seen Severus Snape's last thoughts, and there was no doubt in his mind that the man had always loved his mother.

On the other hand, it hardly made sense that Pettigrew would be lying about this in a private letter to Snape, the only one in the whole world that would logically know that it wasn't true.

And what was getting even more on Harry's nerves was that he remembered how awkward and helpless he had been in the beginning with both Cho and Ginny, and how he had been determined to hide from Ron what he felt about his little sister… And he was beginning to wonder if the Pettigrew described in the letters – the teenage Pettigrew, trying to keep from his friends that he fancied their worst enemy – was much different from that.

But no, Harry reminded himself. He would never cheer his friend on if they tried to bully someone, _especially_ if he happened to be in love with that person.

He just couldn't avoid the thought that there was a difference between a spineless bully and a traitor and Death Eater. Despite himself, Harry wondered things had changed.

Stuffing the letters under his mattress, he turned in bed, staring into the darkness outside the window. He couldn't let this rest. He was going back to the Ministry Storage of Confiscated Artefacts tomorrow. And if he didn't find anything there, he was going to look through Spinners End for himself.

He wanted the truth. That is, he wanted it all to be a lie. Somehow. How could it be anything else? After what he had seen in Snape's last thought…

But as he fell asleep, it was almost like a voice was whispering in his ear, over and over again:

_"If you died today, you would not think of me, not even for a moment."

* * *

_


	3. Backseat lovers

**Chapter 3**

**Backseat lovers**

Harry didn't find anything else at the Ministry of Magic, but he took _Alice in Wonderland_ with him. He didn't want something that obviously had meant a lot to Severus Snape to be collecting dust in the endless archives among nose-biting teacups and diverse whatnots.

Then he went to Spinners End.

The place had been torn apart. There were a few odd book pages littering the floor, and the bookshelves were gaping empty. Chairs had been overturned and glass tinkled underfoot as he walked. There were scorch marks after spells on the walls, and darker squares where paintings probably used to hang. Everything was covered in a rather thick layer of dust.

Walking through the debris, Harry shivered at the silent desolation. It was impossible, now, to imagine someone living there. He went through a sitting-room and found a small kitchen, where broken crockery covered the floor like dry snow. Back in the sitting-room, he found that the reason one of the bookshelves had been angled away from the wall was that there was a stairwell behind it. Muttering a quiet, _"Lumos,"_ he quickly ascended, careful not to trip on the rug that had slid halfway down the stairs.

A small study – more empty bookshelves, crushed glass and the remainders of spilled potion-samples – and a dark, rather depressing bedroom took up most of the top floor. Looking through the latter he found, hidden under the mattress, an old sketchbook filled with picture after picture of his mother's face. Feeling vague discomfort over this intrusion on his dead Professor's privacy, he carefully placed it together with _Alice in Wonderland_ in his bag.

In the bathroom the floor was sticky and slippery from the coagulated contents of a crushed bottle of soap. He couldn't imagine that he would find something there, so he closed the door behind himself and turned to walk back to the staircase.

He would've missed the closet if he hadn't stubbed his toe on the door, which was hanging slightly ajar. Opening it, he found a tangle of bedclothes on a grey mattress on the floor, and felt as if he had been transported back in time, to his own closet under the stairs in the Dursleys' home. So this had been where Pettigrew had lived, if he had understood the letters right. He had a hard time feeling any sympathy.

He could only imagine what it had been like for Snape to have the man responsible for Lily's death living under the same roof. He must've fought back the instinct to kill him every single day. As he stared down into the closet, he saw a manifestation of tightly controlled hatred. This was the only way Severus Snape had found to hurt the man that was to blame for the death of the woman he loved.

He wondered if this was where Pettigrew had written those letters.

At least he had written other things, Harry saw as he leaned a bit closer. The walls were scribbled almost manically with names, random word and snatches of poetry.

_Love is not love that alters when it alteration find_

_Tim Carol Darla Tim Tim Carol_

_Come over get over get through get me_

_Mother_

_Yet we'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon_

_Lily Lily Lily_

_Move_

He stared for a long time at the words, repressing a detached wish to know what these words had meant, before shaking his head and carefully closing the door, closing another wound of Severus Snape's after him and leaving his house to its remorseful emptiness.

* * *

Back at The Burrow he ate his dinner in thoughtful silence and then sat down with _Alice in Wonderland_, for a long time doing nothing but staring at the title-page, following the awkward tumble of his mother's handwriting. 

Until a hand reached over his shoulder and turned the page. A freckled and sunburnt little hand, with calluses from working in the garden and practising Quidditch.

"Just checking if you were awake," Ginny whispered in his ear, her arms twining themselves around him from behind. Together they looked down on the first page. There was a printed picture of Alice, rather stiff and boring, not at all like the picture at the title page. As Ginny silently turned page upon page, they soon found that there was a silent war going on between illustrators in this book. There were the illustrations that presumably had been printed along with the text, but the two other artists wildly outshone them. He recognised Snape's delicate sketches from the sketchbook in his bag, and then the other pictures must be his mother's work. They were very dynamic and colourful, but with a quite nasty edge to some of them; the Queen of Hearts showed a rather remarkable resemblance to her sister Petunia, and the Crazy Hatmaker looked very much like a teenage version of Harry's father.

"Looks like they had a really good time together," Ginny pointed out. "Rather sweet, really. Sort of puppy love-like."

"Didn't go that well, though."

She didn't answer, just tightened her embrace and rested her cheek against his. Harry noticed Hermione and Ron watching them from the kitchen. Ron was wearing a look vague amusement; Hermione was looking thoughtful.

"How would it make you feel, Ginny? Loving someone that doesn't love you back? Would it make you… sad? Or?"

"I remember it made me angry. Just bloody angry." Harry flinched as she spoke, suddenly remembering that she had harboured a crush on him for years before he had realised his own feelings for her. She had told him about it, and he recalled how she had laughed at his complete and utter shock as she told him how she, even when she was dating others, had been waiting and hoping that one day… She admitted that her initial crush on him had been childish and shallow, but had said that it had deepened rather than faded once she had stopped seeing him as a flawless, sword-wielding hero, stepping out of a fairytale to rescue her. And then she had looked at him rather pointedly, and Harry had found himself blushing furiously.

She was looking at him now, with those wise brown eyes, and from the twinkle in them he imagined that she could guess what he was thinking. She seemed to be waiting for an answer, but Harry didn't have anything else to say. However, he thought a great deal about what she had said.

* * *

It was almost midnight, and the library was dark save for a dim white light, seemingly hovering in the air in the Potions section. This effect was created because the light was too feeble to illuminate anything more than a slim dark object that was the wand it was connected to. The person holding it was all but undetectable in the shadows. 

"I almost admire your ability to make yourself invisible," commented a voice, and a dark shadow disentangled itself from the towering figure of a bookshelf and became a thin young man. The wand-holder yelped and the wand fell to the floor with a muffled clatter. Unseen, Severus Snape raised an eyebrow. "My, my," he drawled. "Aren't we a bit nervous tonight, Pettigrew? This is a library, not the Forbidden Forest. Nothing more terrifying than Madam Grit inhabits this area, I promise."

Peter crouched to pick up his wand and brightened its light as he straightened up, so as to be able to see the other boy. He still didn't trust him, far from it, but he wouldn't have admitted it out loud. Nor was he going to point out that if one of his friends should happen to be out for a late night stroll here, or even worse, if anyone of them had followed him, he would have had a hard time explaining his presence. Severus already knew that; he was just teasing him. And defending himself would just make it worse, because that would be admitting that he was wilfully deceiving his friends, a thought that he very rightly suspected Severus of enjoying highly.

These last few weeks of secret meetings, Peter had gotten used to being used as verbal cannon-fodder by his lover. Yet he kept coming, he couldn't seem to help himself. Sneaking out those nights when no mischief was planned, taking the Map with him as extra precaution, he met with Severus in the dark and mostly deserted corners of the school, to feed his longing and strengthen the dream of love.

No two nights saw them in the same place, and from studies of the Map, Peter had deduced which corridors were patrolled by teachers regularly. They should be relatively safe, yet Peter couldn't banish the thought of what would happen if they were caught. Especially if they were caught during embarrassing circumstances. Would the teacher that found them keep quiet? He doubted it. Most of them were just as likely to announce the finding of two queers caught in the act to the entire staff as anything else. Before they knew it, the rumour would be all over Hogwarts.

And Peter would most likely be thrown by an angry mob from Gryffindor Tower.

Severus smirked at him. "Frightened of being found out, little mouse?" He had a horrible way of guessing what you were thinking, Peter noticed. Sometimes he could swear that Severus was actually reading his mind.

"Aren't you?" he bit back. Severus chuckled dryly at the defiance in his voice.

"Not particularly, no. But that is not to say that I want it to be common knowledge, of course."

_What don't you want to become common knowledge? That you have a relationship with a man? Or that the man is me?_

Peter shivered, pushing the thoughts back. What was the point? "Fine then. But yes, I _am_ scared of being found out, thank you very much, and if you had any sense in you then so should you!"

"Why? I know who my friends are, and they are unlikely to abandon me for a thing like this. What do I care about the rest of the school?"

Peter shook his head at the sheer nerve of the other boy. How could he say that? He had no idea how those nutjobs he associated with would react! And having a whole school out for your blood is a bit worse than just having three…no, he had to be honest, _four_ bullies after you.

"I wish I had your confidence," he muttered, sending his lover a poisonous glare that seemed to have no effect whatsoever. "But I don't, and I know you like _that._" That earned him a raised eyebrow, but no reply other than a white hand reaching out to touch his face. Peter sighed silently, resigning. He knew what that meant. Enough said. No more talking.

He would be lying if he claimed not to enjoy the simplicity of kissing, touching, the wordless conversations that passed between them when Severus grew tired of talking. It was just that he always did, and always quite quickly. Sometimes it seemed to Peter that he was trying to forget who he was actually doing this to. But then he looked up, and he saw the same burning intensity in Severus' eyes as he always did, and he knew he couldn't be faking that. He had to be feeling _something_. And maybe it wasn't love at all, but if that was the case then Peter knew deep down that he didn't want to know.

* * *

_I never told you this, but that night was a difficult night for me. Not because what passed between us, for we always touched the same subjects, as I am sure you recall, and it always ended in the same way. With my back against some hard, uncomfortable surface and your hot breath filling my lunges._

_No, that night was no different than a handful of other nights just like that one, our secret midnight trysts, painted in such soft, sweet colours in my mind's eye. I've always hoarded memories, afraid to let them slip away and take parts of me with them; and afraid to let them grow prosaic and tarnished, I've polished them like the most precious jewels._

_But I am straying from the subject. I am avoiding it. It is an ironic thing indeed that I should be so reluctant to admit to a lie; my whole life seems to have consisted of nothing but fabrications, now that I look back at it._

_Slipping quietly through the door to the dormitory that night, a small shadow over the floorboards, I only turned human once I had reached my bed. Still tousle-haired and somewhat weak-kneed from our encounter, I was rummaging through my blankets to find my pyjama, when all of a sudden the room was ablaze with light._

_I spun around, shocked, to find my friends looking back at me from James' bed. Remus was looking a bit weary, but nonetheless interested, and I hardly need to say that James and Sirius were both wearing big grins and looking like Christmas had just arrived early._

"_So," James said, leaning forward. "Who is she?"_

* * *

"Who is who?" Peter mumbled, his display of polite confusion not quite as unaffected as he hoped for. 

"Come off it, Wormtail," James scoffed. "You sneak off in the middle of the night in rat form, taking the map with you, and you expect us to believe that you haven't been seeing someone? Do we look like idiots to you?"

Peter opened his mouth to say something biting about how clever you really look trying to hold an interrogation wearing an outgrown flannel pyjama, but closed it again and looked down. No point in wasting his breath.

"Besides," Sirius chimed in, "you're so obviously snogged that that you can't even walk in a straight line. Just look at you. Messy hair, shirt buttoned wrong, a thick lip." He grinned and winked at James. "Let's turn him around and see if he's got scratch marks on his back."

Peter felt himself blushing and knew that he had given himself away. Sirius gave a bark of laughter, and James heaved a theatrical sigh, wiping an imaginary tear out of the corner of his eye. "Ah, they grow up so fast."

"You can tell us, Peter," Remus said, quite a bit more kindly. "We're not going to make fun of you. Right?" He gave the other boys a stern look, and Sirius sobered up a bit.

"Of course we're not."

James gave him a sour look. "No fair. You always make fun of _me_." Sirius just smiled at him, and James gave up his attempt at sulking. "We're just joking, Wormtail. I mean, we're not going to _laugh_ at you for having a girlfriend."

"We just laugh at people who don't." Sirius apparently couldn't resist the jibe. James swatted him on the head, and Remus rolled his eyes.

"Focus, please," he said, nodding at Peter, who had half been hoping that they might forget all about him in their bickering. He glared at Remus, who smiled mildly back at him.

"Point taken, monsieur Moony," James stated with mock solemnity. "Back to business. Mr Wormtail, we'd like to hear your confession."

Peter felt the corners of his mouth twitch upward, and cursed himself for it. How could he laugh in a situation like this? What was he supposed to say? Even the confession that the 'she' was not a she at all was a far too large one. He didn't know how they were going to react, and he couldn't risk losing them.

Sure, they had accepted Remus. And he guessed that Remus would accept anything, being what he was and knowing what it was like to be… different. But like all other boys in their age, James and Sirius threw around expressions like 'bloody faggot' and 'nancy-boy' when they wanted to insult each other and others. Some just did it for a joke, some really meant it. And Peter had never dared find out which it was in the case of his friends, afraid as he was of making them suspicious.

_But if I just play along with them now,_ a voice in his mind whispered, _they will never suspect what I am. I will be safe._

Peter bit his lip. The prospect of being dishonest with his friends wasn't a pleasant one. He knew he was a fantastic liar, and that they would swallow every word and think no more of it. But it was _wrong_. They trusted him, and it was wrong to betray that trust, wrong not to trust them in the same way.

_But the truth, the whole truth… that is something I cannot tell them. Not now, not ever. I know this. I knew I would have to lie and lie again the moment I followed him to his friend's house, the moment I lay down in that bed… Who am I trying to fool? I have already deceived them._

He checked his features, making sure to look shy and uncertain before he spoke. "I don't know if she really counts as a girlfriend," he confessed, and the fact that what he said was mainly the truth gave him strength to go on. "We've been meeting for some time, but I'm not certain… not certain of how she really feels."

"But you like her?"

"Yes. And I think she likes me too… it's just… I'm not sure. And I want to be before I… uhm…"

"Tell us who she is," Remus finished his sentence for him. "It's okay. Then we won't try to make you."

James and Sirius both nodded, and Peter knew exactly what they were thinking. If they had been Peter, they reasoned, the least noticeable of the Marauders, the one that everyone seemed to forget about, they would be unsure of themselves as well. They would be afraid of being used. It was only natural.

Sirius winked at him. "At least it looks like she likes you quite a lot. She's positively maimed you."

Peter looked away, blushing furiously, and he hoped with all his heart that Sirius was right.

* * *

_That is why I am such a good liar, Severus. I can always find a lie that is so close to the truth that even I sometimes can't tell the difference._

Harry ran his hand through his hair, frowning. He had almost smiled a couple of times while he read of that awkward encounter. He had reminded himself again and again that the person writing this letter was responsible for the death of his parents. But it was hard to find anything truly sinister in these lies, however they seemed to plague the conscience of the grown Pettigrew. It was all rather innocent. He was really just trying to hide his sexual orientation, and since this was in the seventies, it wasn't very difficult to understand why.

However, he was also trying to hide the identity of his lover, and that was still the part that Harry refused to accept. He could, with some difficulty, come to terms that Pettigrew as a teenager hadn't been completely inhuman. But that Snape would sleep with him, treat him like a lover, while he was supposed to be in love with Lily – and Harry _knew _he was, for he could never have gone through what he did if he didn't truly love her – was impossible to accept. And still it was hard to find a reason for this being a lie.

All he could do was to read on, and hope that he would find the missing piece that would explain what this was about, once and for all.

* * *

**A/N: **The two quotations of poetry on the wall of Peter's cupboard are from Shakespeare's 116th sonnet ("Love is not love…") and from the poem "We go no more a-roving" written by Lord Byron. The meaning of the former is quite straightforward, I think. But the latter could be intended as a bitter joke about his time with the marauders, but since it is also disputed whether or not "roving" in this poem refers to a sexual act (something that is strengthened by the line "For the sword outwears its sheath" earlier in the poem), it could also be referring to Severus. Or possibly both. You decide. 


	4. Small signs of winter

Readers make my day.

**

* * *

Chapter four**

**Small signs of winter**

* * *

_And so it became normal for me to slip out at odd hours, bringing the Map with me. And James and Sirius sometimes tried to make me tell who I was seeing, but I played the same card every time. Scared, confused, embarrassed, __unsure__. Lack of confidence can be such a useful thing once you become aware of that you have it. And I had it – have it – in abundance._

_Remus also told me that he was effectively preventing the two of them from sneaking after me. I expressed my gratitude and choked back my guilt. It was becoming easier to ignore the voice telling me that I didn't deserve them, probably because I was getting used to it._

_And slowly you learned to accept that yes, we were a couple. You started caring about me - don't you dare deny it. It mightn't have been obvious to an outsider, but I was slowly getting to know you and noticed how you became more… gentle. You still abused me verbally, but you stopped saying things that you knew would truly hurt me. Your hands started to linger, prolonging touches and making your caresses __tenderer__. You kissed me on the mouth more often. And after we had made love, you stayed for a while, pretending to straighten out your clothes or performing some other small, meaningless task._

_And then came that day… you know which day I am referring to, don't you? I bet you will always remember that day._

* * *

James stumbled into the dormitory, looking somewhat punch-drunk. He didn't answer his friends' greetings, but sat down on his bed without a word, staring vaguely at some invisible point in space. 

"Oi! James?"

No reaction. Sirius frowned, sitting down beside his best friend. "Earth calling Prongs! Hello?" James turned his head to look at him and smiled dazedly, but he still didn't reply. Sirius was beginning to look worried.

"You don't think he's been hexed, Moony?"

"I don't think-"

And then James spoke.

"She said yes," he said.

His friends blinked at him.

"What?" said Sirius, and then, again, but sounding more amazed than perplexed, "What? You mean that Lily…?"

James nodded. "Yes. She said… yes."

And the room exploded with exclamations as James' three friends tried to congratulate him at the same time. Sirius gave him a rough hug, Remus ruffled his hair and Peter circulated at the edge of the general excitement, happy for his friend's sake but still unsure of how to act. Eventually, he settled for patting James on the back, saying some encouraging words that were effectively drowned by Sirius bullying James for more details.

And James told and retold the story many times the following hours, still looking somewhat dazed but no longer at loss of words – he seemed full to the point of bursting with them now that his happiness had caught up with him.

Peter also noticed that Lily, sitting among her friends in the common room, seemed to radiate happiness like a soft, warm glow, and she had a look of calm that he had never seen in her before. It was as if she had found some strange kind of peace; with James, with the world, with herself, or all of it at once.

* * *

Later that night, he was to meet Severus in the Charms classroom. He was there early and sat down to wait, checking the Marauder's Map once in a while to make sure that no teacher on patrol – or even worse, Filch – was approaching. 

Severus came there a quarter of an hour late, and stopped in the door, a cold and distant look on his face. He looked tense, Peter noticed, as if barely restraining some emotion. That was unusual, to say the least. Severus was normally too proud to even let it be suggested that he too was capable of emotion.

Which meant that something was bothering him. A lot.

"Is something wrong?" Peter asked hesitantly, standing up and surreptitiously tucking the Map in his pocket. He made to step closer, but changed his mind and stood still. For all he knew, his lover was going to go off like a bomb at any second.

"Nothing's wrong," Severus said, in such a clipped, strained manner that it was obvious that something was wrong. "I cannot meet you tonight. I'm… busy."

Peter blinked, and felt the chill of disappointment once the words sank in. It shocked him that it upset him so, but without even realising it he had let anticipation of this encounter build these last few days , and now it felt like he was being deprived of… he didn't know what. Only that it left a strange hollowness behind.

"Are you sure everything's… okay?" he said, straining to keep his voice normal.

Severus made a small grimace of impatience. "I'm fine!" he snapped, and Peter recoiled immediately, dropping his gaze to the floor. Seeing this, Severus appeared to make an effort to pull himself together, drawing a deep breath and letting it out audibly. "I'm fine," he repeated more calmly. "It's just… I cannot… I cannot be here tonight." There was something haunted in his gaze, and he seemed on the verge of cracking, of letting that emotion – whatever it was – out. "I'll… speak to you. About when we can meet again. Don't…"

"Don't what?"

"Don't speak to me until then."

And in a swish of robes, he was gone.

* * *

_Two weeks passed without a word from you. You avoided my presence, and when I tried to catch your eye you always looked away. I started crying myself to sleep, and no longer went out at night. My friends guessed that my secret sweetheart had dumped me, and left me alone._

_And then you slipped a note in my pocket during Potions, telling me to meet you by the lake. I was sick twice before I managed to gather what courage I had and go. I was sure that you were going to break up with me._

_But you didn't. The first thing you did was to kiss me; the second was to point out that I tasted like shit. I wonder if you guessed that I had been throwing up; I wonder if you guessed why._

_You refused to answer any questions about what had happened, why you had been avoiding me. You wouldn't even touch the subject. It was as if those two weeks never had happened._

_I had lived through hell during your absence, but I silently accepted that you didn't want to talk about it, even if didn't understand why._

_I do now, though._

* * *

For a short moment, Harry felt a small sting of sympathy, but he pushed it away, disgusted. Instead he reread the last lines, shaking his head slowly. His father getting together with his mother… Lily slipping forever out of Severus' grasp… 

Now real sympathy flooded up inside him, as he thought of what his old teacher must've felt. How frustrated, how hurt mustn't he have been, seeing the girl he loved walking into the arms of his sworn enemy? Knowing that he had been her friend, her confidant; knowing that he had lost the chance for ever and now could only watch as she was pulled even further away.

Harry though of how he had felt seeing Ginny kissing Dean, and shook his head. He knew he wouldn't have been able to function normally in Snape's situation. He recalled how Snape had taunted him for his lack of self-control, and felt a sour smile pull at his lips. He could see what he meant now. To Severus Snape, everyone else must seem like slaves to their own feelings, helplessly drifting along.

Everyone except Dumbledore, come to think of it. That must've been the reason why he had admired him so.

Tucking the letters away, he stood up and stretched, his back cracking. It felt like he had been lying there for ages, sprawled on his bed in Ron's room, reading. Ron had noticed him reading the letters, but hadn't commented on it. Harry guessed that he had asked Hermione and gotten the situation explained to him that way. He noticed, sometimes, that Ron was watching him with a small frown of concern. He didn't think it was healthy for Harry to be pursuing Snape's history, he had told Harry that much. He didn't understand this strange obsession of his friend's, and how could he? He couldn't know how much Harry felt he owed him.

Down in the kitchen George was eating a sandwich in silence, so Harry got out again as quickly as he could. Instead, he sat down in the garden, idly watching Mrs. Weasley feeding the chickens, Hermione was reading in the shade of an apple tree, and Percy, of all people, was ridding the garden of gnomes. Ginny and Ron had wandered off an hour ago to practice quidditch, and Mr. Weasley was off visiting a friend from the Ministry who was still recovering from being partly turned into a fuchsia by a panicking Death Eater.

Everything was so peaceful, so quiet – save from some squeals of, "Gerroff me!" – and a sense of happiness lodged like an ache in Harry's chest. It was over. He had to remind himself time and time again that it was finally over. The cost had been great, but when you thought about how different it was not to have to be constantly afraid, constantly wondering what tomorrow would be like… it had been worth it. That didn't make the losses any less painful, but it made them more bearable.

However, there were some loose ends to tie up. For everyone.

He had visited Teddy yesterday. He felt some kind of responsibility toward the boy, being his godfather, although they had all agreed that it was best if he lived with his grandmother. Both for Harry's sake – he didn't exactly feel ready to raise a child – and Andromeda's. She needed something to keep her going. She had lost so much…

Harry sighed. It wasn't going to be easy. As far as he could remember, living had never really been easy. However, when he thought about Dudley and Malfoy, he was actually quite glad that it hadn't been _too_ easy. That just meant it being a lot harder later. When reality caught up with you.

And then he wondered if he was ever going to see his cousin, aunt and uncle again. It didn't seem very likely. Harry certainly had no wish to see them again. He didn't really resent them anymore, but nonetheless… there was nothing he wanted to say to them, and he felt no affection for them. But maybe, one day…

Yes, there were a few loose ends. Some more battles to fight. Like his family – if you could call them that. Like Teddy. Like George. Like going back to Hogwarts. Like the letters. Mostly, all you could do was to live, to tackle each day when it came. The letters, however…

Well, not now. Right now, he was fully intending to enjoy the evening, and the peace, and the war that was no more.

* * *

_When I was about ten and a half, I overheard my mother and father talking in worried voices about "disappearances", of how suddenly people went missing without explanation. That was the first time I ever heard about the Death Eaters, even though we didn't know it then._

_Then, a couple of years later, the papers spoke of "attacks", about the dark enemy that made the __Wizarding__ world a less than safe place if you happened to be of the wrong kind._

_The Dark Mark was seen for the first time in our forth year, and the name of __Voldemort__ was carried from whispering student to whispering student, but we soon stopped. We started calling him You-Know-Who. We were afraid to say his name. We were afraid of everything he was, everything he stood for. And of course, we feared his masked followers._

_If someone had told me back then that I would wear one of those masks… I would have told them that there was nothing in the whole world that could make me. And I would've been telling a lie. Of course there was._

_But that was later. At the time, I was seventeen, and __Voldemort__ might not yet have reached the peak of his power, but he was rapidly approaching it, recruiting followers from everywhere his hands could reach. And that proved to be very far._

* * *

Severus tumbled sideways on the dirty sheets, panting. Peter rolled over on his back to watch him, feeling lazy and content, not as stressed as he usually felt. They had taken to hiring a room at The Hogs Head during the Hogsmeade weekends. Peter guessed that the owner suspected what they were doing there, but it could hardly be worse than the commerce that usually went on there. In any case, he didn't even raise his bushy eyebrows when Peter had come rushing through the door five minutes later than the usual time, only handed him the key to the room and told him curtly that he was late. 

They lay resting for a while, their breath and hearts slowing to their normal pace, and then Severus stood up, reaching for his underwear. Peter said nothing, knowing that asking him to stay would just earn him a stinging remark and a reminder that it wasn't wise to linger in this place more than necessary. It was only when Severus was picking up his robes from the floor that he noticed.

His heart almost stopped, and he sat up, staring at his lover's left arm as if expecting it to turn into a snake and bite him. Severus must've noticed him staring, because he froze, slowly lowering his arms and allowing the robes to slide to the floor once again.

"What is that?" He hadn't intended it to come out as a whisper, but his voice wouldn't cooperate.

"A flashy tattoo to make up for my lack of manliness," Severus drawled, not looking at him. "What do you _think_ it is, Peter?"

Usually, Peter would feel a rush of warmth to his chest every time Severus used his given name instead of calling him 'Pettigrew'. Not this time, though. Now there was a terrible, throbbing pain swelling in his throat and fear creeping through his heart. He couldn't speak, but what did that matter? There were no questions to ask that he didn't know the answers to anyway. So they were silent, staring at each other over the great depth that had suddenly opened between them.

Eventually, forcing lips that felt stiff and dry to move, Peter croaked: "Let me… touch it."

Severus tilted his head to the side, looking a bit surprised, but then he – just once, and very slowly – nodded. He sat down on the bed, extending his arm, and Peter stretched out a trembling hand, running his fingertips over the blackened skull, the twisting snake, following the contours as if he was looking for some secret message, some way of understanding what he could not.

It was ugly, made even more so by the fact that it was marring the otherwise perfect whiteness of the thin, smooth skin on Severus' arm. But if it looked grotesque, what it stood for was even worse.

"It looks infected," he mumbled, touching the red, raw edges of the Mark.

"It still hurts a bit," Severus replied, grimacing and moving Peter's finger away. "It's new."

"Well, I think I actually would've noticed if you'd had it before," Peter replied somewhat dryly. The corners of Severus' mouth twitched upwards in an almost-smile, and Peter's heart stung with hopeless affection. Biting his lip, he blinked away a tear, and for once it didn't bother him that Severus saw it. He had to understand. Peter was going to _make_ him understand. Because no matter how much he hated what Severus had done, what he had become – and now matter how much it made him hate himself – he couldn't hate Severus.

So he bent his head, and even though his heart burned and his stomach knotted painfully with pure revulsion, he kissed the mark on Severus' arm. Then he looked up to find Severus staring at him, even whiter than usual with shock. He seemed incapable of speech; his mouth moved but his voice was lost to him.

"Every part of you," Peter mumbled, meeting Severus' gaze for a terrible second, before he had to look away, repulsed by what he had done.

Severus snatched his arm back and quickly stood up to dress. Peter couldn't bring himself to look at him, and Severus didn't speak. He stopped in the doorway, however, and Peter could feel his gaze lingering on him for a long time, before the door slammed shut and he was left alone to wrestle with his self-loathing.

* * *

_Don't think I wasn't angry. I was. I was furious with you; I wanted to shake you so hard that I would rattle some sense into your head; I wanted to scream at you until my lungs burst for being such an idiot._

_But I didn't. Why? I'm quite sure you thought it was because I was afraid of a conflict, and it is true that I didn't want us to fall out. I wanted you to stay with me. And don't you think I knew that nothing I could say would change anything? You would never sacrifice what you believed in for my sake. Not even if I was willing to sacrifice the same thing for you._

_I suppose that made all the difference, didn't it? __And not only between you and me._

_That was the difference between me and her. _

* * *

Harry didn't really know what to think. Shaking his head in an attempt to clear it, he stuffed the letter back in its envelope. 

The first coherent thought that appeared in his mind was that this was the first time Pettigrew had ever directly mentioned Lily in the role as his rival. Of course, he didn't mention her name, but he made it very obvious who he meant.

Someone cleared their throat, and Harry looked up to find Ron watching him.

"Must've been something pretty awful in that letter, the way you kept grimacing," he said, his face inscrutable.

"Snape got his Dark Mark when he was seventeen," Harry replied. He suspected that this wasn't the only thing that had made him grimace. The horror he had felt reading about how Pettigrew had kissed it; his vague amusement at the thought of what Aberforth Dumbledore must've thought about these... trysts; the flash of remembered fear as he was reminded of the horrors of wartime... all of that must've been visible in his face.

Ron, however, wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "Bloody idiot," he mumbled. "No offence," he hastily added, as if scared that Harry was going to be angry.

Harry grinned at him. "I can't really say that it was the brightest thing he ever did, no."

Ron, relieved, grinned back. "I mean, it's like... it's like if _I_ should become a Death Eater." When Harry frowned in incomprehension, he tried to explain. "I mean, Hermione wouldn't be that pleased, right?"

"I think we can safely say that, yeah," Harry replied, amused.

"Well, I sort of can figure that out, so since I love her – and since I'm not stupid enough to believe in all that Death Eater rubbish – I don't become one. But Snape... I mean, even though he might've believed in all that crap, one would still think that he just might get that it wouldn't make your mum like him more, exactly. Her being muggleborn and all. I mean, hanging around that sort of people... What did he expect?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't understand it either." But then, thinking of what he had read in the letters, he added: "But maybe he thought it was hopeless? I mean, mum was already dating dad by then and he..." _...w__as having an affair with Peter Pettigrew_ "...he had moved on with his life. So maybe he thought that since he was never going to get her anyway, it didn't matter anymore."

Ron nodded, slowly. "Yeah, maybe. So... what are you reading? I mean, if it has all this information on him it has to be his diary or something. He wouldn't exactly have told just anyone about this, right?"

"No, not just anyone," Harry mumbled, forcing an expressionless face. "It's written by... a friend of his." Ron raised his eyebrows questioningly, but Harry only shook his head. "Look, I already told Hermione... I can't say more than that. I haven't got the full story yet. And it's... strange, so far."

Ron shrugged. "Fair enough. It's not like I'm dying to know the story of Snape's life or anything. It's just that... well, _you_ are. And I can see that you care a lot about it." He didn't say more, just looked a bit awkward, but Harry understood and was moved by it. They didn't speak for a while; then, on a silent agreement, they both got out of the room and down the stairs, grabbing their brooms as they went along. It was a beautiful day to fly, and maybe, Harry thought, the wind hitting his face as the broom rose from the ground would be exactly what it took to blow all of his thoughts out of his head for a little while.

It is strange, he thought distractedly, catching the old football that Ron threw his way, that friends could be so many things. You could hide from your friends, or with them. You could lie to your friends, or you could lie to others to save them. You could fight with them, or fight for them.

And in the end, you could kill them, or you could die for them.

You always had a choice.

* * *

Ta-da! Call it a belated Christmas gift or something. School sucks, so I have to have something to do while not doing what I SHOULD be doing. And look! Angst, angst, angst, everywhere angst! I'm so predictable, really. 

Oh, and if you are bored and you like to be tortured a bit, you can always check out my one-man, very bad wrock band at myspace. It's called His Silver Hand, by obvious reasons.


	5. Do what it takes

**A/N**: I have a sneaky feeling that it was ages ago since I updated. Ah, well. Possibly, I might still have some readers on this one. It's rather... special, so I do value the readers I have.

Also, I notice with amusement that I have a reader who's response was, as I believe she/he put it, about as sceptical as Harry's. I am very glad to see I'm not only preaching to the perverted... I mean, converted. Ehem.

**

* * *

**

Chapter Five

**Do what it takes**

* * *

"Do I know anyone who's gay?" Harry asked, and efficiently made both Ron and Hermione forget what they were doing.

"Uhm... dunno..." said Ron, looking bemused. "Do you?"

"Oh, honestly," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "You _both_ do. Surely you know that?"  
Ron gave her a surprised look. "We _do_?"

"_Yes. _You're amazing, you know that? You've been sleeping in the same dorm with a guy for six years, and you didn't even _know_ he was _gay_?"

"Who?" the boys chorused, their bewilderment turning into mild alarm rather quickly. Hermione gave them a look that spoke more than just volumes; it was half the Hogwarts library. Ron blushed slightly and squirmed.

"Well, if anyone of the two of you had been paying any attention at all, you would've noticed that your friend Seamus Finnegan hasn't exactly shown any interest at all in girls. And that he went out with both Ernie McMillan and Fitzwilliam Flinn-"

"Who?"

"Hufflepuff too, one year below us. I think he even had a short fling with that Slytherin boy... I forget... one of the Higgs brothers."  
"You remember the names of Slytherins? What don't some girls do for gossip? Hey! I'm only joking!" Ron raised his hands to ward off Hermione, who was trying to whack him expertly over the head with a large textbook.

"Still, why did you want to know?" Hermione said, lowering the book.

"Because... because there are probably some things I need to ask."

Hermione's lips twitched. "Should Ginny be getting worried?"

Harry was just about to answer when Ron shook his head, narrowing his eyes at Harry. "Don't be silly, Hermione. It's about those letters again, isn't it?"

Hermione frowned. "But that doesn't make sense, Ron. I mean, Snape _couldn't_ have been..."

"Yes, it has to do with the letters. And no, of course Snape wasn't." Harry turned his gaze away, telling himself that half a lie was no lie at all. "But there was... someone else that was."

"The person writing those letters?" Ron guessed, giving Harry a shrewd look that for a split second made him look like his mother.

"Yes."

"So he didn't write them? Who is it then?" Hermione was watching Harry in bright-eyed attention, but Harry shook his head.

"No. I told you, not yet." He avoided looking at them, but knew that they were exchanging looks. "So... I'll be going to Ireland then?"

"I don't think so," Ron said, his brow furrowing. "I met Dean in Diagon Alley a while ago, and I think I remember him saying that Seamus'd moved to London to live with a muggle friend. I think Dean said he was worried for his friend since there still are some Death Eaters at large, something like that."

"That's very sweet of him," Hermione said earnestly.

"But... I mean, the Death Eaters that are left aren't really targeting muggles, are they?" Harry asked, perplexed.

"Would you feel the same if Ginny was a muggle?"

"You mean... Oh. Really?"

"Yes. Probably." Hermione let her gaze wander between the stunned faces of the two boys, and smiled in a rather exasperated way. "Well, Harry? You've got an owl to send, don't you?"

* * *

_Leaving Hogwarts was, to say the least, surreal. I'm sure you felt the same. Or no, I'm sure that you felt it even stronger than I did. I had a good home, I had loving parents, and thus, Hogwarts never became a refuge in the same way it did for you and for Sirius._

_However, you had grown up quickly in your shattered home; I was doted on as an only child. In school you were hardened by the torture your bullies put you through; I made sure there was always someone to protect me. So when we were expected to be grownups, in a world torn by war, I was the one that couldn't cope. I was the one that was scared._

_Being alone was what I feared more than anything, because alone is unprotected. And now I suddenly was. James and Lily moved in together, Remus and Sirius shared an apartment. I was the odd one out, not by purpose or unkindness, but simply because it had never struck me to ask, and once everyone was settled, I didn't want to intrude. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, never had a sense of purpose like my friends, so I started to work in a shop in Diagon Alley, feeling all the time like a failure because I couldn't think of anything else to become._

_I know this must be tedious reading for you, Severus, but this is all part of it, in its own small way. I believed you loved me because I didn't have the guts to question you, and I took everything you threw at me, not only because I loved you, but because I never had the confidence to believe that I deserved anything better._

_And later, when the war got bloodier and more violent than ever before, and you got more and more involved, so involved that even during those few nights when we could see each other, you were always distant, your mind dwelling on other matters... If it hadn't been for my lack of confidence, for my feeling of uselessness, that spark of an idea that was kindled in my mind would've remained only a spark, and eventually it would've dwindled and died. As it was, it was quickly fanned by restlessness and uncertainty, until my soul was aflame with it. At last, I had a purpose._

_But that was later. Before that, something else happened, something I never told you of, because I never thought you'd be interested. I was probably right, but now I wish I would've told you._

* * *

They had all gone out for a drink that night. Actually, it had been Peter's idea; he couldn't stand the emptiness of his house at night, and hoped that if he was sufficiently intoxicated when he came home, he wouldn't notice. And he craved the company of his friends. Of course, since he was who he was and didn't want his friends to think he was a nuisance, he had planted the idea in Sirius and let him think that it was _his_ idea. It was simple enough. Sirius was easily influenced.

Later, he would of course curse himself for ever getting the idea of going out that night. And at the same time, he would also be happy he did. Because as they were leaning on the bar counter, trying to catch the attention of the barman, a voice suddenly rang out behind them.

"Hey, Peter!"

Peter turned around, and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. He recognised the guy waving at him from his nights out. He was Caspian, one of the few guys that had actually talked to him. Of course, that had been after he'd started meeting with Severus, so if Caspian had been interested in him – something Peter seriously doubted – Peter had at least managed to convey that he was unavailable.

"Hey, Wormy, who's that?" James asked.

"Uh... just someone I met..."

"Sure he wasn't hitting on you?"

"What?!" Peter heard his own voice breaking, and he spun around to stare at Sirius. "Why?"

"Well, he _is_ wearing one of those pink buttons... What's wrong, Peter? It's not such a big deal, is it?"

"Well... no... _no. _I just..." He ransacked his brain, but there was no way of escaping, and Caspian was already on his way there, grinning widely.

"I thought it was you! So, which of them is it?" He gestured at James, Sirius and Remus, who stared back in absolute incomprehension.

"Which of us is what?" James asked, nonplussed. Peter closed his eyes. Oh no. No, no, _no_.

"His boyfriend, of course."

There was a long, shocked silence. Finally, Peter managed to get his voice back.

"None of them. They're just my friends."

Caspian grinned. "Does that mean I can have a go?"

Peter shook his head mutely, his face a picture of distress. And only then did Caspian finally catch on.

"Oh. _Oh._ Oh _no_. Don't tell me I just outed..."

"Yes. Please, I need to talk to my friends right now."

"Of course." He looked subdued now, perhaps even ashamed, and he left without a word, leaving Peter with three friends who were each drilling holes in the back of his head with their stares.

"Could we please get out of here?" he whispered. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to hear him over the music, but Remus had some advantages.

"Sure. Let's go to our place." If there was anger or disgust in his voice, Peter couldn't detect it, but it wasn't Remus he was worried about.

* * *

"Why didn't you tell us?" Sirius' voice was dangerously calm. That was never good; it usually meant that he was waiting for the right moment to explode.

Peter couldn't meet his gaze, and therefore stared dejectedly at his own hands. "I didn't dare to."

"Why didn't you?" Remus seemed genuinely surprised.

"Because..." Peter shook his head, his hands unconsciously curling into fists. "It's just the way everyone talks about it. I mean, even if people _say_ it's okay, they still use it as an insult, and it's still not something you talk about. And most people _don't_ think it's okay. And there is no way of telling the difference." Realising he was rambling, he fell silent, blushing unhappily.

Sirius looked like he had found the right moment to explode, but before he even managed to get started, he was interrupted by James, who had kept very silent since Peter's secret had been made known.

"So," he said, "if you're... uhm, _that_... then that secret girlfriend is actually a... boyfriend?"

Peter nodded numbly. "Yes. Definitely a boy."

James grimaced. "Urgh. No details, please." But when Peter flinched, he relented. "I'm sorry. It's just... I can't even _imagine_ doing... stuff... with a bloke. I can't get why anyone would want to."

"Well, every time _I _think about doing 'stuff' with a _girl_..." Peter bit back before he could stop himself.

Remus laughed, surprising his three friends. "I _see. _So _that_ was why you couldn't tell us who she... uh, he was." He grinned slyly. "Especially after all those comments about how snogged you always looked when you came back."

Peter blushed even deeper. "Well... yes..."  
"So then you can tell us now?" James wondered, tilting his head.

Peter paled. It had been a trap. A very clever trap. Remus was such a bastard. But Peter was far too good a liar to fall for it. "No, I'm sorry. I can't."

"Why not?"  
"Because he hasn't told _anyone_ that he's... well, interested in guys. He made me promise to keep it secret." Severus hadn't, not in so many words, but Peter was sure that the promise had been made nonetheless. By both of them. "That's why I haven't been able to tell you. I'm sorry I lied to you, but I didn't know what to say."

Sirius, who still hadn't said anything, turned his face away. "We said no more secrets, Wormtail. No more secrets about anything." Peter knew he was the most upset because he had, true to that statement, told them everything about his twisted family. As if he didn't know that he'd only get sympathy for that! Whereas Peter, if he actually told them about his 'girlfriend', would not get any sympathies at all, to put it mildly.

"What does it matter who I fuck?!" Peter exploded, suddenly angry, and then clapped his hand over his mouth in horror. Sirius spun around, looking positively mutinous.

"What matters is that you fucking _lied!_" he shouted.

"I know. I know." Peter cowered and hated himself for it. "I know, Padfoot. Really. I'm sorry. But there's nothing... I'm gay and I didn't tell you, and I'm afraid I can't do anything about that now." He looked away, feeling weary with his friends, weary with the whole stupid situation. "I can tell you that I'm sorry and I really mean it, but if you still don't want to forgive me then there's nothing I can do."

"Can't you ask your... eh... boyfriend if it's okay that you tell us?" James wondered, obviously trying to mollify his two friends. "Tell him you trust us."

Peter thought about how Severus would react if he asked him, and laughed humourlessly. "It's not about that. It's just about... people knowing, and him not having any control over it. I think you know what I'm talking about, Remus."

Remus nodded reluctantly. "It's difficult even to tell someone you love and trust. I've never managed to tell anyone about... well, you know. You found me out. And telling someone I don't know, even if somebody I cared about trusted them... hell no. If what he feels is anything like what I feel about... my furry little problem, then he won't let Peter tell us."

"Can you at least ask?" James wondered.

"Fine," Peter said, knowing he never would. New lies instead of the old ones. Whoo-fucking-hoo.

"Well, even if you can't tell us anything now, you should still tell us... I mean... we should know... Do you love him?" Sirius' voice was not quite so strained now, and Peter recognised the peace offering for what it was.

"Yes," Peter said, and it somehow felt like the huge truth of it made up for a lot of little lies.

"And does he love you?" Remus asked quietly.

Peter looked away, his gaze fixing on the dark window and the compact night outside. In his mind, Severus' dark eyes dilated, his mouth opened, his shoulders shook as waves of pleasure tore his body.

"Yes. He does."

* * *

Harry felt a right idiot where he was, standing outside the door of the flat. The sign on the door said, 'Carlson', and then a bit of tape had been pasted underneath, reading, 'Finnegan'. Another bit of tape was decorated with flowers, and read, 'The fags next door'.

He pressed the bell, still wondering what he was supposed to say. How could he explain his need to ask his questions, and while on that subject, what the hell was he supposed to ask? Still, he knew himself, and knew he wouldn't give himself any rest until he at least gave it a try.

A young black man, maybe eighteen or nineteen, opened the door. He was dressed only in a flimsy dressing-gown and was obviously jolted out of almost-sleep by the sight of Harry. "Who the fuck are you?" he said, but he sounded more surprised than hostile.

"I'm... here to see Seamus," Harry said, feeling terribly embarrassed to have caught the other man off-guard like that, and not knowing why he cared so much. "I'm a friend from school."

"Oh. Right." The young man turned around and made Harry jump by suddenly shouting, "Wake up, muffin! There's some stud from school here to see you!" Seamus appeared in the door to what was presumably the bedroom, and his... yes, his boyfriend stopped shouting. "You owe me a lunch for getting out of bed," he said in a normal speaking voice. He then bestowed a kiss on the slightly baffled Seamus' cheek and disappeared into the bedroom.

"Hello, muffin," Harry said, unable to resist grinning.

"Shutup, asshole," Seamus countered, colouring slightly. "I assume from your utter lack of surprise that you have been forewarned, since the last time I checked, you and Ronnie-boy were both completely oblivious. So who's the culprit? Who am I going to hunt down and kill? Oh, wait, don't tell me. It was Hermione, right? Sodding girl to talk."

Harry was a bit shocked by the way Seamus prattled on. He was always been quite highly strung at school, but here he seemed relaxed. "Uh, yeah, it was. But I sort of asked her."

"What?" There was some severe alteration in the altitude of his eyebrows. "If I was a faggot?"

"Er, no," Harry fidgeted a bit awkwardly. "I asked her if I knew anyone who was gay, and she told me."

Seamus tilted his head to the side. "Now, why would you do that?"

"Because there are some questions I need to ask. Er, and don't look at me in that way. Not _those_ kind of questions. Not about me."

"Oh, no, it's for a friend, right?" Seamus said, waggling his eyebrows and grinning.

Harry laughed. "Not a friend either. Just... a historical person. Yes. History."

Seamus turned around, apparently making sure that his boyfriend was well out of the room, before hastily conjuring up a tray with biscuits and tea. "Okay, fine. Your faggot on call is here to listen. Sit down and don't just stand there like a lesbian."

They talked about other stuff first. About the war, about being worried for people you cared about, about going back to school; and even if Harry's reluctance was apparent, Seamus said nothing about it.

And then, when they finally had said everything that needed to be said, friend-wise, Harry had managed to figure out what he wanted to ask first.

"Have you ever... I mean, I don't really know what the Wizarding World is like on this subject, but have you ever been treated... you know, differently?"

Seamus shrugged. "Sure. I mean, all wizards and witches _claim_ that they're so much better than muggles, that they're neither racists nor homophobes, but that's not how most people _act_. So it's a lot of whispered insults and odd looks and superior sneers and stuff. You learn to live through it, once you realise that dickheads like that isn't worth you time anyway."

Harry determinately fended off the thought that Pettigrew probably never, ever had had that kind of confidence. "So... say that it was the seventies instead. Do you know how you would've been treated then?"

Seamus gave him a strange look out of the corner of his eye, but said apparently decided not to ask. "The seventies? Well, from what I have gathered it was much worse back then, just like it was in the muggle world. I mean, it was a valid reason to shut someone out of the family, if you only did it quietly. And gay people were sort of not... polite to discuss, as if it was something embarrassing or disgusting, like... I don't know, like speaking about going to the toilet in the middle of a dinner. It was a bit like how squibs still get treated. With open pity and hidden ridicule." He shrugged. "I'm glad as hell I wasn't born back then. Coming out must've been pretty nightmarish. I mean, my family..." He trailed off, sighing. "They weren't very happy as it was, and I imagine it must've been worse, back then."

Harry nodded. He remembered how some of the older boys, back when he went to a muggle school, had used words like 'faggot' and 'sissy' to make fun of people, and that Dudley had soon caught on and done the same to him. That was, apparently, what you did.

"_Who's Cederic? Your boyfriend?"_

He wondered, briefly what being called those things had been like, if it had been true. If he'd really been gay. He remembered how angry and hurt Hermione had when they started calling her 'mudblood', and that wasn't even something she _could_ hide. But if you could...

He'd never heard it in the Wizarding World, where the only 'open' prejudices appeared to be about blood, but he knew enough to realise that there were ways one could be intolerant in silence, doing harm without drawing attention to oneself. It seemed no matter who you were, there were always bigoted people who would tell you it was wrong, but when it went as private as your sexuality, he could only imagine how exposed it would make you feel.

"I understand. And if you had friends who... you know, used words like 'nancy-boy' like insults and stuff like that? Would you tell them?"

Seamus shrugged. "It depends on how much those friends mean to me. I mean, the more I cared about them, the harder it would be to tell them, because... well, what if? Then again, the more I cared, the harder it would be to lie." He looked away, suddenly a bit more like the Seamus Harry was used to from school. "I never told Dean. He figured it out on his own, and then he laughed at me for being daft enough to think that he..." He shook his head, relaxing somewhat. "I was glad he wasn't angry with me for lying. It's just... well, it _is_ worse in the muggle world, and he's muggle-born. And he's my best friend. Just... I mean, you imagine what it would be like losing Ron."

Harry remembered the times he almost had, in various ways, during the war, and nodded. "I know."

Seamus raised his eyebrows. "I bet you do. So yeah, if it's close friends we're talking about, really close friends, it would be bloody hard. It's easier with family, in one way, because they'll always be your family. I mean, they can't just stop and decide not to be. In other ways, that makes it hard as well, but you still can't lose them like you lose a friend."

Did Pettigrew ever tell his family? From what Harry had read in the letters, he guessed not. Would he otherwise have felt so lonely, if he'd been able to talk to them about it? It seemed more probable that he'd kept it from them as well. Besides, why would he have developed a spine when it came to them, when he obviously was incapable to do so in approach to his friends?

* * *

_So I never told you, but my friends found me out. It made it easier, in some ways, and harder in some, having an affair with you. At least that was one big lie I no longer had to tell. And credit where it is due, they didn't treat me any differently. That is, they were cross with me for lying, but they would've been no matter what I had lied about. And sure, I became the butt of some related jokes, but it was never harmful or nasty. They were just dealing with the thought, in their own way._

_But now we're approaching what you and I both know will inevitably come. I want to make it clear, before I proceed any further, that this was no errant whim of mine. I know it seemed so at the time, but I'd been thinking about it for a very long time. I had no real motives, it's true, other than that I loved you, and that I longed to get as close as I could. That, and fear. Yes, I won't deny it. I was frightened. Terrified. There was a war happening around us and everywhere I turned, our side was suffering great losses. There was always someone new to mourn, an ever-increasing number of people you didn't talk about. It looked like we were losing._

_So it was because of that, but mostly because of my feelings for you, that I did something I was going to regret for the rest of my life._

* * *

They were still meeting in hotel rooms, it seemed safer that way. Not that Peter knew who would be likely to turn up at Snape's home – he didn't particularly _want_ to know – but considering that all of_ his_ friends had keys to his apartment, it wasn't really a risk he was willing to take.

Usually, when he arrived in the room, Severus was already there, and this time wasn't different. He was sitting on the bed, and he was flexing and unflexing his left hand, staring at his exposed arm. Peter shuddered, even if he couldn't actually see the mark, and as always nowadays, dangerous thoughts started to sift through his mind, along with wild hopes and a deep and ignored knowledge that he was about to do something that was... _wrong_.

Quietly, for some reason reluctant to disturb the other man, he slipped into the room and sat down on the bed so that he could watch Severus' face, but still wouldn't have to see the Mark on his arm. He shrugged off his cloak, but then changed his mind. The room seemed unnaturally cold and he shivered in the dry, air-conditioned air.

There was the whisper of a sound that is made by fabric sliding over skin, and Severus turned abruptly to look at Peter, who shied away, driven by some obscure instinct. Severus looked wryly amused.

"Afraid I am going to bite you, little mouse?"

Peter smiled, he couldn't help himself. "No. _That_ I don't mind."

He was surprised to see Severus' face lit by a smile that was unusually warm, and his heart reached out toward him and he thought, _Yes!_

Yes, I will do this.

"I do think I have noticed." Severus said, reaching out and touching Peter softly – tenderly? – on the cheek, tilting the shorter man's chin upwards with the merest of inclinations. And then Severus kissed him, pushing him backwards on the bed, and Peter knew only bliss.

* * *

It was afterwards, and they were both half slumbering among the tangled sheets. Normally, Severus would have left by now. But Peter didn't need to ask him why he was still there. There were fine lines on Severus' face where none had been before, and the pallor of his cheeks had gone beyond what was normal, making him look sick and weak. The white skin contrasted alarmingly with dark smudges under his eyes, and lying close to him, Peter could clearly feel bones jutting out from under Severus' skin. In his mind and in his heart, Peter felt his resolve hardening from blood into steel. Severus was alone now. He shouldn't have to be alone. And if not Peter, then who?

This way, none of them would ever have to be alone again...

But how? It didn't matter. He'd find a way. If this was meant to happen – and it had to be – then he'd find a way. And as if to prove this, at this exact moment Severus screamed.

It was a short, harsh cry, abruptly cut off as Severus sat up and clutched his arm. His face was screwed up in pain. "My... wand..." he whispered to Peter, who had frozen in horror where he lay. Life returned to his limbs in a jolt and he scrambled among the discarded clothes alongside the bed until he found the slim piece of blackthorn wood, handing it over to Severus without a word.

The wand was gripped in a white hand that trembled so much that Severus seemed to have trouble holding onto it. His clothes was back on his body without him uttering a word, and then he lifted his gaze, his eyes wide enough that you could see beyond the illusion of blackness and notice that they were actually dark, dark brown. Peter was almost overcome by the sheer beauty of the other man, but his instincts pushed love and admiration aside. There was fear in those eyes.

"I will go now," Severus said, his voice harsh. "I will disappear."

Peter at first didn't understand why Severus was saying this, but at the realisation that he actually wanted to forewarn Peter so that he wouldn't be frightened, a sudden burst of painful joy almost made him hesitate. What if... Severus was looking so frightened, after all... Maybe he would leave on his own accord? Maybe this was unnecessary?

But there was no time to weigh the odds, and the decision was already made up in Peter's mind. As Severus lifted his wand to, it appeared, press it against the mark, Peter waited until the absolute last moment before lashing out with his hand and catching Severus' arm in a vice-grip. He heard the other man draw a ragged, shocked breath before they both were sucked into darkness.

And as light returned to the world, and there was no going back, Peter almost smiled. _We'll never be alone again, _he thought.

* * *

_I'm sorry, Severus. I'm so, so sorry._

* * *

**A/N: **Cliffhanger? Me? Never.


	6. A man at the crossroads

**A/N:** Sorry for the extremely long delay, was inevitably held up by life XP

Huge thanks to all of you few but wonderful reviewers!

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* * *

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Chapter six

**A man at the crossroads**

* * *

"What's _this_?"

Before Peter had any time to get his bearings, anonymous hands lashed out at him and tore him to his feet, and two wands were pointed in his face. He couldn't see the people holding him – two men, judging from how strong they were – but he could see Severus. He was getting up slowly from the ground even as a third person – definitely a woman, even seen from behind – pointed a wand at his chest. As she spoke, it became apparent that it was her voice he had heard before; it was dark and strong, with an almost manly huskiness to it.

"You were being _followed_, Snape? Or did you bring a stranger here on your own accord?"

Severus opened his mouth, sneering, but Peter saw the hesitation in his eyes and knew that whatever it was he was going to say, Peter needed to beat him to it.

"I convinced him!" he gasped, an involuntary, cold shudder running through his body as the men holding him tightened their grips. "I convinced him to bring me. I want to join you."

He felt the surprise of his captors as their hold on him loosened for a moment, only to once more tighten; the arm around his neck was threatening to choke him. The woman rounded on him, and guilt hit him like a punch in the gut as panicked thoughts reeled through his mind like steel balls in a twisted kind of mental roulette: _Sirius. She looks just like Sirius. What am I doing here? Bellatrix, she must be Bellatrix, his cousin, the cousin he hates. And now he will hate me too? No, not if he doesn't find out. He must never find out. None of them must ever know._

"Do you think any crawling worm is allowed into our circle?"

He called forth all the fierceness that fed his love to Severus, fed the flames, and pretended it was strength. The words came swiftly to his lips; lying was so easy once you learned it, and sometimes he wondered why not everyone did it all the time. But maybe everyone did?

"My blood is just as pure as yours. Purer, come to think of it. No sibling of mine has yet married a mudblood, as far as I know." He made his voice sharp with disgust, and mentally apologised to Andromeda Tonks, a woman that he always had admired and liked.

The woman's face twisted in fury and she raised her wand to Peter's throat, but a voice from the doorway stopped her from speaking the curse that obviously hovered on her tongue.

"Easy, Bellatrix. I am sure the Dark Lord wouldn't be pleased if he found out that we have made a habit of killing all new applicants."

The man was tall, blonde and handsome in a sharp, pointy way. His grey eyes coolly surveyed Peter, but when they turned to Severus their iciness thawed into amity. "Is this true, Severus? Did you bring him here because he wished to join?"

Peter's heart skipped as Severus hesitated, but then he nodded, his face stony. His eyes as they rested on Bellatrix showed well-hidden disgust.

Peter remembered Lucius Malfoy rather well. He had been in sixth year when he started Hogwarts, and during the two first years of his and his friends' stay there, he had acted as Severus' protector, making sure that their bullying never got out of hand. It was only after he had left that it had escalated into physical abuse and jinxes; before it had simply been name-calling and some small, relatively harmless pranks. As the man once more turned to regard him, he realised that Malfoy remembered him as well, and his heart plummeted.

"You surprise me, Severus. Isn't this the little vermin that used to follow that blood traitor Black and his friends around like a dog?"

Severus shrugged. "He wanted to join. I figured he would be easily controlled."

Peter almost smiled. The best defence there was, better than a million curses, was having everyone around you convinced that you weren't any threat to them. If you were 'easily controlled', you were safer than the strongest warlock.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes at him. "And what would convince Black and Potter's little lapdog to become a Death Eater?"

"My reasons are my own," Peter said quietly, keeping his voice meek but his eyes unwavering. Malfoy must believe that even if he was completely spineless, he still had cause to be there.

"Well, they won't be for long," Malfoy sneered. He nodded to the two men holding Peter. "Release him. We'll take him to the Lord. Then we'll know for sure whether this little parasite has the kind of reasons that will keep him alive."

The strong arms keeping holding him abruptly let go, and Peter lost his balance; he fell to his hands and knees, coughing violently as his mangled windpipe tried to right itself. As he looked up he saw that everyone present were pointing their wands at him.

"Surrender your wand, Pettigrew," Lucius said coldly. Peter smiled wryly.

"I don't know if anyone has noticed, but I'm dressed in a just my underwear and a shirt. Where do you think I could hide a wand? I gave it to Snape before he had me stripped down to make sure I didn't carry another. He has it in his pocket."

Without even the tiniest change in expression, Severus pulled out Peter's wand from his pocket and handed it to Lucius. Peter had to admire his acting skills. He had shoved the wand there during Apparation, and he was quite sure that Severus hadn't noticed. Malfoy received the wand, nodding his approval at Severus, and then waved his own at Peter. He braced himself for a curse, but instead he felt, to his immense relief, how his shirt turned into robes. The blond man regarded him with disgust as he stood up, but Peter really couldn't care less about his opinion. At least he would not be brought in front of Voldemort half-naked.

Fighting the urge to run away, and the equally strong urge to throw up, he followed his captors into the next room.

* * *

Harry slowly closed his hands into fists, squeezing the letter into a tiny ball. He couldn't think, he was too angry, and so he just stuffed the crumpled letter under the mattress with the rest of them and then lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, waiting from the red mist to fade from his eyes. But even as the most immediate fury died away, it left a low-tune, throbbing rage that seemed to engulf his whole body like some thick, hot fluid, making it hard to breathe.

That was where it had begun. That was the very decision that would ultimately condemn his parents to an early, violent death at the hands of a man who laughed while he took their lives. And Pettigrew had just walked right into it as if he wasn't even aware of the danger he put everyone he cared about in. Harry thought back to the letter with difficulty, and realised that that probably had been the case. Pettigrew hadn't been aware of the danger he put _anyone_ in, not even himself. The only thing he had been aware of at that time was that stupid, illogical notion that he somehow needed to protect Snape by following him. As if _he_ wasn't in more danger than Snape.

"_My reasons are my own."_

Harry snorted. Had he really thought it would be that simple? That he could keep everything a secret from Lord Voldemort? Come to think of it, why hadn't Voldemort simply killed him then? He must've known, must've seen it in Pettigrew's mind; Harry couldn't imagine that Pettigrew had been strong enough to hide it from him. So why had Voldemort allowed him to live?

Sighing, Harry rolled over on his stomach and reached in under the mattress. There was only one way of finding out.

* * *

_Yes, I know, I was an idiot. I thought, somehow, that I would be able to protect you, take care of you. I thought everything would be easier once we were together; that joining him would bring us closer and eliminate the loneliness that was already emptying my soul. Foolish I was, and selfish. It is hard to find a better definition of love than that._

_You should know._

_

* * *

_

Peter had gone beyond fear when he finally stood before Lord Voldemort. Fear was a distant, forceless thing that he barely remembered, yet he knew that he would have preferred it before this cold, dead certainty that there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do now. It was all too late. Everything. Too late.

Inhuman red eyes watched him in disinterest in a face that looked unnatural, gleaming cold even in the muted light of the candles lighting the room. "What is this? Explain, Lucius," said a cold, high voice that inexplicably frightened Peter more than anything ever had before.

"He claims he wants to join us. He contacted Snape."

A small change was detected in that pale face. Peter guessed that if he'd had any, this human-like _thing_ would have raised its eyebrows. "He did? And how did he know he ought to contact you, Severus?"

"I knew what kind of people he associated with," Peter said, once again cutting Severus short. "I'd seen him. At school."

The red eyes flickered in his direction, and then once more returned to Severus. "How do you know he's not a spy?" he demanded.

"I know he did not lie about anything he told me," Severus said, his voice steady. "I tested him. But I do not know his motives."

'_What does he mean, tested me?' _Peter wondered, but every thought stopped when that red glare once more descended upon him.

"Oh, really," Voldemort said, and for some reason he sounded amused. "Well, we'll see about that, won't we? Come forward." He beckoned toward Peter with a slim, bone-white finger. Someone behind Peter gave him a brutal shove, making him stagger forward. He stumbled on the stairs to the dais where Voldemort was lounging on a chair as though it was a throne; his balance lost, Peter fell to his knees, grimacing as a sharp stone ate its way into his shin. As he looked up, he could see Voldemort watching him with a strangely pleased smile curving his lipless mouth, and then he lifted his wand. Not a word escaped him, but suddenly...

Peter was eleven, and Remus was mumbling a quiet 'yes' through the tears streaming down his cheeks, admitting that he was a werewolf...he was twelve years old, and Sirius was reading his homework, laughing at all the 'funny' misinterpretations... he was fourteen, and James was calling Mulciber an arse-bandit, and he felt like he wanted to die... he was fifteen, and watching Severus out of the corner of the eye as he was smiling and talking to Lily, longing for him to turn around and notice him ... he was still fifteen, lying in his bed and biting his pillow as he imagined that Severus was there with him, holding him, touching him... fifteen again, watching Severus being hung upside down and knowing that his life depended on that he laughed and clapped even though he wanted to burst out crying... seventeen, flying out of his chair as the pain overloaded his brain and against all reason, he was kissing Severus... having sex with Severus... again... and again... and again... and then his friends were waiting for him, and he lied, said he'd been with a girl... and again there were a long series of secret meetings, his most private moments being pulled out of him... he was swearing the oath and joining the Order...Caspian outed him and his friends confronted him; more lies and half-truths... and then he was back in that hotel bed, just a few minutes ago, and he was grabbing Severus' arm as he touched his wand to his mark...

Sobbing, Peter sank to the ground when he finally was released, feeling as if his very soul had just been violated, soiled, torn in pieces... He could hear Voldemort laughing, very quietly, as if at a private joke, and knew that he was the joke. That snakelike creature in front of him had seen everything, understood everything. There were no lies that Peter could protect himself with from this man, who could see into his very soul and pick out his most precious memories, his fragile dreams; toy with them, scrutinize them, and then laugh at them; as if they meant nothing, as if they were merely distractions to him.

And now what? Was he going to kill him? Probably. It suddenly mattered very little. Everything that had ever mattered to him had been taken from him, and then thrown back at him like so much garbage. He felt rejected, raped, worthless...

"Get up, then," the silky voice told him, a hint of impatience and disgust giving it needle sharpness. Peter stiffened, surprised, and then slowly pushed himself back into kneeling position.

"That will do," Voldemort said lazily, which was just as well, because there was no way Peter could have gotten to his feet right then. His legs felt numb as with cold, and his stomach was turning with nausea. As Voldemort stood up and walked towards him, he lowered his gaze, unable to look into those red eyes, afraid that he would see a part of his own soul still in there, trapped.

"Extend your left hand with your palm up."

Impassively, Peter did what he had been told. Why not? It wasn't as if refusing was going to gain him something. Either he would be forced, or he would be killed. He honestly had no idea what he preferred, so he chose the easiest way. Without having to be told, he then rolled down his sleeve, exposing his skin. Voldemort hissed in amusement and placed his wand against his upturned arm, and then blinding pain shot through Peter, making him cry out and collapse, the world around him slowly darkening and disappearing into blackness.

* * *

_You knew all along, didn't you? You knew what was going to happen, what he was going to do to me when I was brought before him? Yet you protected me, played along with my lies so that the other Death Eaters wouldn't kill me. Why? Were you counting on that he would let me live, did you actually figure out that it would amuse him enough to keep me alive? Did it disturb you, I wonder, that he was to know about the two of us? Or had you already let him know? I can't imagine that you had._

_Or was it so that you simply thought that because I belonged to the Order, I was safe? After all, I was the spy he had been in need of for so long. That was what you told me, yet somehow, I wonder..._

_Did you consider, right then, what a threat I would pose to Lily? Or did you assume that I would never be trusted with her protection, when there were other, more capable wizards and witches about? I actually think you did. After all, who in their right mind would trust a miserable, talentless thing like me with that kind of responsibility?_

_

* * *

_

Peter woke up, and his arm was on fire. He cast about in panic, hurting himself even more as he sought for the flame, but then he noticed the mark burnt into his flesh, and he remembered.

"Hold still. The pain will disappear... well, most of it, anyway."

He looked up, and found that Severus was regarding him with an inscrutable expression, crouched by the side of the mattress on which Peter had been sleeping up till now.

"You could have been killed," he said, and Peter was surprised to hear reproach in his voice.

"I figured it was worth it," he replied faintly and looked away.

"Nonsense!" Severus had grabbed him by the chin and forced him to make eye-contact once more. "You do not believe in what he says. He is the enemy of your friends. There is no reason for you to be here."

'_There is one,' _Peter thought, but he didn't say it aloud. He didn't dare to. Instead he met Severus' searching gaze and smiled wryly. "My reasons are my own," he replied.

He saw a small spasm cross Severus' pale face, almost as if he was trying not to smile. But he wasn't smiling when he finally relied after a while. "Not anymore," he said darkly.

Peter shivered as he remembered. "Well, he didn't kill me. So apparently I've got reason enough."

Severus looked away, his face hard. "He didn't kill you because you are part of the Order. He will expect information from you. Information on your _friends_. Did that thought ever cross your mind?"

"Yes," Peter replied quietly, "yes, it did."

For a long while, Severus stared at him, and Peter wished that he knew what he was thinking. He wondered what Severus was going to say next, what he possibly could say next, but the answer appeared to be nothing. Instead he sighed and leaned forward, kissing Peter with a gentleness that he suspected surprised them both. And then he got to his feet and walked over to the door, where he stopped. He stared out into the darkness beyond.

"Rest for a while. I will get you later."

And without a single glance back, he left.

* * *

**A/N:** Fuckery, fuckery, everywhere fuckery.


	7. Tear it apart and burn it all down

**A/N:** Sorry, once more, for the long hiatus, but I just can't seem to get my mind around the concept of focusing on one project at a time. Thus, the delay. I hope you didn't mind much.

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Chapter seven**

**Tear it apart and burn it all down**

* * *

Sirius and James swanned in, both wearing the Order of the Phoenix T-shirts they'd fashioned for themselves yesterday, because they obviously had too much spare time. Remus shot them a look over the edge of his book and then went back to studying. Peter continued relentlessly chopping vegetables.

Sniggering at some private joke, the two black-haired youths sank into the sofa, lounging in that nonchalant, loose-limbed way that tall, handsome men were obviously taught at some secret school.

"Hey, Moony, thanks for telling me about Elvendork the Effable," James drawled, and new sniggers erupted from Sirius. Remus' eyebrows twitched slightly and he sighed down into his book.

"I'm not going to ask you, James, and that means I really don't want to hear. Please. It is going to make me upset anyway.

James shrugged, grinning. "You are a genius, my friend."

Sirius, on the other hand was apparently attempting to pin Peter with a severe, commanding look, but only managed something between 'arithmancy problem too hard to solve' and 'constipation'. "Oi, Wormy! You're not wearing that T-shirt we gave you."

Peter sighed. "No, I'm not."

"Why?"

"Well, mostly it's on the account of the fact that I would look a right tit in it."

James crossed his arms. "Hey!"

"I'm not saying you are. I'm saying I would."

Sirius frowned, shaking his head. "Why would you think that? What's the difference?"

"Apart from that you're both handsome, both have right the image and attitude, and that _you_ don't look like someone who's heard that black makes you look slimmer, and actually _believes_ in it? Nothing, I'm sure." Peter finished with the cucumber he'd been massacring and went on to the onions.

"Hey! What crawled up your arse and died?" James was looking offended, but Sirius giggled.

"Don't ask that question to a poof, James. You might not like the answer."

Peter, who had been doing a great job of pretending that the tears running down his cheeks were caused by the onions, was surprised by a sob that came so suddenly that he had no chance of biting it back. Throwing his knife to hell and half hoping that it hit one of his friends, he fled the room with his face in his hands.

He found himself a couch to collapse in, shaking with hurt and impotent fury. Of course it wasn't really the way he'd look in that shirt that made him react this way – although he would never have worn it anyway – but the fact that he _couldn't_, because it was short-sleeved.

He had lost count of the times the sight of the Mark branded into his skin had driven him to tears; sometimes even to the point of retching. For a moment he was bitterly amused as he entertained the thought that if this continued he might actually lose some weight. Then despair returned and backhanded him with full force, turning his breathing into shrill, asthmatic gasps that made a small part of him curl up in disgust at himself.

"Okay, what the devil was all that about?"

Enter his friends, en masse; their presence crushing, stifling in a room that already felt too small to contain him and the hoards of his guilt. Surprisingly, even though the words had been rough, James' hand on his shoulder was almost gentle, certainly friendly.

"I…" he choked out, but in truth, he did not know what to say. There was a long silence in which he could physically _feel_ them exchanging glances even though he continued staring at their feet.

"Uh, Wormtail…" Sirius used their boyhood nickname kindly, but it only served to distance Peter even more. He was the only one of them who had not chosen his nickname for himself. Naturally.

"Yes?" he snapped, and recognized the exact same voice he had used when talking to Bellatrix. His mouth snapped hastily shut, and he swallowed down the baleful words that had piled up on his tongue, clamoring to spill all over both Sirius and his two other friends.

The damage nonetheless done, Sirius was shocked into silence, and instead, Remus picked up where he had left as if on cue.

"You don't have to take it that way," he stated mildly, not even stern or admonishing, but gently reproachful. "We just wanted to know if…" He cleared his throat quietly, apparently searching for words, and immediately Sirius stepped back into the conversation.

"That… that boyfriend of yours… Have you… I mean… Did you break up?"

Peter felt strangely, harshly compelled to laugh, but there was only anger behind the urge and no amusement at all. They were asking about Severus, the man he had sold them out to be able protect. Trying to analyze this sudden fury towards his friends, he could not find its source. They did not understand what he was feeling, and that made him angry, but he knew he was being unfair and could put that anger aside. So what was it? As he watched their faces, he wondered if it wasn't simply that it had been so easy. Joining their enemies, placing them in even more danger than they were already in, betraying them and everything they believed in… it had been terribly easy. Horrifying, sickening, painful – yes, but still, considering what it ought to have felt like, easy.

He couldn't even bring himself to regret it more than a little bit.

And now he hated them and was angrier than he had ever been before because when all was said and done, they meant so very little to him compared to Severus. Compared to a lover who never said he loved him and abused him verbally every now and then, his friends still didn't manage to mean very much at all. It was as if he saw them for the very first time, heard their voices clearly after years of being deaf. He ought to care about them so much more than he did, ought to be affected by them and what he had done in _some_ damn way other than getting bloody furious with them. After years of friendship, was this all he could feel? Still?

He opened his mouth, feeling a sudden urge to tell them everything, to tell them how little it meant to him if they would die because of him. But nothing would come out; there were no words, just a sick, empty feeling, and for a moment he wondered if that was really what he felt, or what he wanted to feel because it would be easier that way. Then, frightened, he pushed that thought aside. What eventually came out of his mouth instead was, unsurprisingly, a lie.

"We…we're just going through a rough patch," he mumbled, curling up miserably upon himself as if he could squeeze the emptiness inside until it was so small it wouldn't matter. "I want to… I want to tell you about him, but he won't let me. He forbade me to… and I'm so _sick_ of it. I'm so sick of keeping secrets from you."

Using the truth to create a lie… it was too simple, and it made it so difficult, eventually, to remember which was which. Did it even matter?

He saw his friends exchanging sympathetic glances, and James reached out a hand to pat him awkwardly on the shoulder. "We understand, okay? It's not your fault, after all, right?"

And once more Peter felt the perverse urge to laugh, but now even the anger had drained away, leaving only hardened, frustrated unhappiness. Not his fault? It was _all_ his fault. Everything.

* * *

_I cannot imagine that you will ever be capable of understanding what I felt right then. I cared so much and not at all; I was sick with guilt and with the lack of it; I loved my friends and I blamed them. And how I hated them! Sometimes just because their lives were so simple compared to the mess I'd made of mine; sometimes because they hadn't been able to save me. Sometimes simply because no matter what happened, they never would understand why I had done what I did. Either I would keep doing this forever, and they would never know anything, or they would find out and then they wouldn't care why. I didn't know which prospect frightened me the most; being found out or not. Now, I wonder what would have happened if I had been discovered while there was still something left to save._

_I was also desperately lonely, yet whenever I was with my friends I felt crowded and miserable, and I couldn't stop thinking about what I had done. And the worst part was of course that they didn't notice. I was almost driven mad by guilt, and it felt as if I hardly ever spoke to them anymore, and yet I do not think they even wondered if there was anything wrong with me after my sudden breakdown. If they actually did notice that I was a lot quieter, I can only suppose that they thought I was still upset about my boyfriend. And we never spoke of it again._

_It was, of course, better whenever I was with you. At least with you, I didn't have to pretend, even if I still wished I could talk to you._

_But we did talk. Do you remember? Not about __that__ of course, but ever so slowly our relationship developed into more than sex and traded insults. I do not know how much it meant to you, but it was the only thing that kept me from going insane. I'm sorry; I know that's a terribly pretentious thing to say, and to be fair it's not exactly true either. I __was__ insane; I think that has been made rather painfully clear to posterity. But you kept me hoping for something better._

_And then you took that away from me. You really shouldn't have._

* * *

"Harry! Harry! Seriously, are you okay?"

Harry looked up, feeling as if someone had repeatedly used the _Crucio_ over him the last half hour. "What?"

Ron sat down next to him, looking tired and very worried. "You're so white you look like someone just raised you from the dead. And you keep driving your nails into your thumb." He nodded at Harry's hand, where the skin on the back of his thumb was raw and red and had even started bleeding in a few places.

"I'm fine," he managed, even if he felt far from it.

"My foot," Ron said bluntly, scowling. "Since you started reading those letters, you've been more and more like… well, like how you was during the war. And that's not even close to okay."

Harry shrugged, too drained to argue. It took so much effort to keep reading, and even more effort to keep himself from shredding the letters after every other paragraph. "It's not like I enjoy it as such, I've just got to…"

"Know, yeah, you said. But I'm thinking…" Ron looked a bit uneasy and fell silent.

"What?"

There was a short pause, during which Ron was obviously steeling himself, and when he spoke, the words tumbled out rather quickly. "Maybe it's not worth it, Harry? They're messing you up, these letters. You still refuse to talk about what's in them, so we just have to assume that you haven't found whatever it is you're looking for, and… well, maybe you won't? Maybe reading them all will just mess you up even more. And for all you know, it could just as well be a pack of lies. So maybe you should just give up on this?"

Harry stared out the window for a while, then he sighed. "Hermione put you up to this, didn't she?" Ron looked surprised, then ashamed, and Harry nodded. "I thought so."

"Well, actually, she didn't," Ron said, shaking his head, and Harry gave him a surprised look. "Hermione thinks you ought to be allowed to continue. She says she thinks you're smart enough to find whatever truth there is in those letters, even if they are a pack of lies."

"And you don't?" Harry wondered, a bit annoyed.

"I do," Ron said, hurt. "And so does Ginny, but… well, she's worried about you. You know, she's a bit like mom, she gets upset when she can't help people, and the more these letters are messing with your mind, the less accessible you become. So she asked me to talk to you, because she's afraid that you might think she's a pest."

"She's not worried I'll think _you_ are a pest?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows. Ron grinned.

"I imagine she figured that you _always_ think I'm a pest, so it wouldn't make much of a difference." His smile lingered for a few seconds, then he was somber once more. "It's not just Ginny, though. Our whole family's worried. I mean, not that we've told anyone about the letters," he hurriedly added, "they've just noticed that something's wrong."

Harry suddenly smiled, carelessly folding the letter in his hand and shoving it back into its envelope. "I'll be fine, really. It's already happened. There's nothing I can do about it now, so there's no point in getting worked up. Besides, not finding out would mess even more with my mind."

Ron looked surprised, but he was obviously relieved to have his friend back in a more coherent state. And Harry reflected over how amazing it was, really, that the smallest thing could make you feel better.

Ron had just said '_our_' family.

* * *

"Ron said you were worried."

Ginny looked up, then made sour face as she went back to peeling potatoes – manually, Harry noticed. But Ginny had a temper on her, and wasn't very good with household magic. That in combination with knives was a bad idea. "I told Ron not to tell you."

Harry stooped somewhat until he could put his arms around her waist and leaned his chin against her shoulder. "I figured it out on my own," he told the skin of her neck just where it dipped into the shoulder. She squirmed a bit, complaining about that he was tickling her, but after a few moments she leaned against him with a contented sigh. They stood like that for a long while, silent, and that was enough.

"I am terribly selfish, you know," Ginny murmured eventually, her fingers trailing over his hand.

"Really?" He smiled, amused. "Why? Whatever have you done?"

"Well…" She interrupted herself to sigh once more, deeply and happily, as he kissed her collarbone. "…you see, one of the reasons I asked Ron to talk to you…"

"Mhmm…?"

"…was that you don't do this as often anymore..." she finished quietly, and for a moment she gripped around his arms so hard that it hurt. Then she disentangled herself and faced him, her eyes wide open and grave. "And I know this is really, really important to you, but…"

"But…?" he prompted mildly, pushing a lock of her hair that had gone astray behind her ear.

"But it's almost like that distance you put between us during the war is coming back, and that sort of scares me. And it's also not a very nice thing to be reminded of… the war, everything going wrong…" Her words ran out, and he grasped her gently around the shoulders and pulled her back close.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "It won't ever be like that again, I promise. I'm just a bit… upset."

"I know. I know. I'm being stupid." She laughed tiredly, but he shook his head, kissing her forehead.

"No, not stupid. I like it when you worry."

"Silly."

"Shut up."

And just to make sure she did, he kissed her, feeling himself falling a little bit more in love with as he did. He wondered, then, what it was that had kept Severus falling, all those years when he had been lonely. What it really was that he had loved. He wondered, too, what it was like when you were falling so fast that sooner or later, there had to be an impact; sooner or later, someone had to get hurt, and there was no telling who. Love didn't _have_ to be selfish, Pettigrew was very, very wrong about that. But perhaps, either if you let it burn too slow or too fast, it would make you grow cold, or it would spread without control, burning everyone around you.

* * *

The chill of the concrete wall ate its way through Peter's coat, and strangely enough it helped him stop shaking. Eventually, his breathing slowed as well. Once his face wasn't numb and his line of vision wasn't edged with a black void, he could get his bearings on the street around him. He was relieved to the point of collapsing when he realized that he was only a few blocks away; he hadn't gotten lost after all. He'd just panicked when he thought he'd taken a wrong turn, and he really needed to see Severus right then.

Severus had given Peter his address a week earlier; hell, he'd even allowed him to follow him there so that he'd know the way. Of course Severus had been very strict about that this knowledge was only to be used in an emergency, and doubtlessly he'd strongly disapprove of Peter coming there for such a foolish reason, but for once Peter did not care.

He did, however, endeavor to wipe the tears of his face and grappled with himself until he at least had some semblance of control of his own body, letting the last of the tremors die away and his breathing grow steady again. Severus would undoubtedly know anyway, the moment he showed up on his doorstep in such a manner, but Peter had a feeling that he would appreciate it if he put up the effort to at least retain _some_ dignity.

When he was sure that he could walk again, he slowly started off again, staying close to the wall in case he would collapse a second time. And of course, when the rush of adrenaline died away and the squalls of panic faded, it all came creeping back like some slow but lethal disease; the self-loathing, the regret, the futile anger and slow-boiling, gut-wrenching hatred.

It was about a year ago that he had joined the Death Eaters; one year of secrecy and doubt; one year of trying not to think about the damage that the information he handed over might cause. He had known all along that it couldn't last, and that sooner or later, reality was going to catch up with him. If nothing else so because of that if he knew anything about the Dark Lord, then it was that he enjoyed nothing as much as showing people how close they really came to being just as bad as him; that they were no better for feeling guilty about what they were doing, because they would still do it, for whatever petty reasons they had and harbored as if they actually meant something. Who could really be said to be the most cold-blooded, the most inhuman? The one that saw nothing wrong in what he did, wasn't capable of seeing it, or the ones that knew exactly how wrong it was, but who would deny it and hide behind comparing themselves to others, thinking, 'At least I am not as bad him'?

Peter tried not to think about that.

But tonight he had been proven right. Tonight, he had been requested to accompany the rest of the Death Eaters on a mission that was directly connected to one of his reports to them. There was no reason for this, he was sure, other than to drive home with a vengeance exactly what those seemingly harmless bits of information did to people he lived and worked with every day.

And that was what he had seen.

* * *

He had seen Robert McKinnon forced to his knees and executed in front of his children. He had helped Yaxley to hold Marlene McKinnon back as her children were brought in front of her, tortured and put to death. The only child that was spared this treatment was the youngest girl, who was given to Fenrir as a plaything. Peter turned his face away so that he wouldn't have to see the woman's face as five-year-old Rachel was dragged off, kicking and screaming and calling for her mother, and he tried to forget that he and Lily had helped out babysitting the girl and her brothers along with the Weasley kids. What was the point of remembering, now?

And then Marlene had sagged in their arms, suddenly forceless, as Voldemort descended upon her. He had told Peter and Yaxley to back off, and as they let her go she dropped to the floor like a ragdoll and made no attempt to get up. The Dark Lord flipped her over on her back with a careless wave of his wand, and she stared up at him with blank, cold hatred in her eyes.

"Do you really think you can hurt me now?" she whispered hoarsely as he raised his wand and smirked at her.

"I am going to kill you now," he pointed out silkily, as if expecting some kind of reaction, but Marlene McKinnon just smiled.

"Please do."

And Peter wished that he could have looked away right then, as the Dark Lord snarled and raised his wand, erasing something from Marlene's eyes that you probably wouldn't have noticed until it wasn't there anymore.

When they left the Dark Mark shone with deadly clarity in the pitch-black sky, yet Peter wondered how long it would take for anyone to notice. The McKinnons had planned to spend a whole week in this remote cottage, away from war and chaos, spending precious time with their children that otherwise was a scarce commodity nowadays. They had only told a few people where they were going, stating that they would not communicate with anyone until they came back. Remus had not been one of these people. But Peter had. He knew his disguise was wearing thin, and he wasn't quite sure whether to be relieved or frightened.

* * *

And now he stood by Severus' door, and after only a brief internal struggle he rang the doorbell, leaning against the wall while he waited to keep himself from sinking to the floor and quite possibly never finding the initiative to get up again. After only a few seconds he began to fret, yet he told himself over and over again to be patient, until finally he had to come to terms with that there was no one there. Severus was away. Quite possibly the Dark Lord had planned for him to be so; after all, he knew that Severus was the only one Peter could go to.

And it was just too much. He knew he should go back home, but the mere thought almost made him suffocate from sheer panic, and suddenly everything inside him said, 'No!'.

_No, I _won't_._

_I've slept with him since I was seventeen. I'm twenty-one now. That's four years. Four years of asking for nothing and giving everything. Four years of sitting by his feet, waiting for whatever crumbs of affection that he might drop, accepting every superior sneer and cold, hurtful remark aimed at me without so much as a word of protest. Selling my soul to the enemy for his sake without ever receiving any kind of thanks for it. I know he's opened up to me somewhat this year, but it isn't enough. It shouldn't be like this. I shouldn't have to take this. He _owes_ me._

So, without stopping to think too much about it, he broke into Severus home

* * *

_Who were you protecting? Me? Yourself? Her?_

_The first alternative is, I fear, too much to hope for. The second is more likely. The third one… no, I do not think so. I do not think that, even in your wildest nightmares, you would have been able to imagine that I would do that to her._

_On the other hand, I do not think you ever imagined that I would break down your damn door either._

_

* * *

_

The apartment was dark, and when he tried the switch, nothing happened. Severus wasn't paying for his electricity. Well, why should he? Sighing in relief at the false sense security given to him by the closed door behind him, he fished his wand out of a pocket with a trembling hand and waved it once, creating a globe of cold white light that hovered in midair.

The apartment went beyond being Spartan, sporting only a bed, a desk and a small nook where something that for lack of better word could be called a kitchen was crammed. Some boxes in one corner had books spilling out of them, but otherwise, everything was obsessively tidy. The place did not feel lived in; it was as impersonal as a brick wall, and about as warm and welcoming. The bed wasn't even a proper bed, just a mattress on the floor with some neatly folded blankets in one corner. For lack of anything else to do, he sat down on it, but he soon got up again, wandering around the small room like a rodent in a too small cage. He peeked through the two doors in the wall where the 'bed' was situated, but they only lead into a small closet and the bathroom; he checked the pantry, but just as he had expected it was completely empty save a couple of onions, a couple of Potion's vials and a piece of cheese that was happily attempting to create its own little ecosystem. He hadn't expected Severus to be eating in this abysmal place; probably he lived on takeaway food from the nearest wizarding restaurant.

Peter was starting to feel uncomfortable and rather dumb for breaking in as he wandered over to the desk and sat down. The light he had created was rather poor, and it was still hanging around by the door, but the desk seemed to be covered in... was it photographs? He put out the light by the door and instead lit the single candle standing on the desk. It flickered to light and illuminated the glossy surfaces of picture upon picture of...

_Lily?_

Every single picture of the about hundreds that literally covered the whole desk showed Lily, from the age of eleven and up. From that she was fifteen and older, she was no longer facing the camera, and she was further off, as if the photographer had taken the pictures without her knowledge. He also found a picture that was very clearly from her wedding, torn in half, in all probability to eradicate James. But Severus hadn't been at the wedding. _Obviously_. But then he remembered that one of the Prewett-brothers had brought a camera, and the raid at their home only last month...

Feeling utterly numb, all thoughts moving so slowly that it was as if his head was a silent vacuum, Peter reached out and picked up a simple leather folder that lay open, looking like a dead thing, among the pictures.

It was full of letters. A few of them were from Lily, but most of them dated from after Lily had stopped talking to Severus, and they were all full of crossed-out words and torn-off edges. In every single one was a plea for apology followed by a stumbling confession which lead nowhere and more often than not ended in an inkblot.

He stared, for a long while, at what appeared to be the sad evidence of a life-long obsession. Then he put the folder back in its place, stood up, went out and repaired an locked the door behind him. And then he sat down and waited.

* * *

Six o' clock in the morning Severus returned. He started when he noticed what was probably nothing more than a vaguely human shape in the shadows from where he was standing, and instinctively reached for his wand.

"It's just me," Peter mumbled, and from what he could see of Severus' face, his expression changed to annoyance.

"What are you doing here?" he wondered tersely, unlocking his door with a wave of his wand. Peter didn't reply, just banged his hand on the light-switch, bathing the stairwell in brilliant yellow light. Severus quietly took in his reddened eyes and tear-streaked face, and after a few seconds he nodded.

"Just a moment." He opened the door and slipped inside. After barely half a minute, he returned, indicating that it was okay for Peter to follow him. He entered with his head bowed and his eyes glued to the floor, but the moment Severus turned away from him, his eyes darted to the desk. It was empty. The pictures were hidden away.

And then he knew. Then he finally _knew_ without a doubt; then he could no longer fool himself. Severus had never been his; he had been giving himself away for nothing, to nothing. He had been a cheap substitute for something that Severus could never have, that was all there was to it. And if he stayed, that was all it would ever be.

And just as he knew this, he also knew what he needed to do. It was as if the world –which a moment ago had been so complex that he no longer knew where he stood in it – suddenly became horribly, painfully simple. There was only one course of action left, and he had no choice but to follow it.

The only thing that remained for him, the only thing that mattered now, was making Severus hurt just as bad as he had hurt him.

That was all.

* * *

**A/N: **So now we're nearing the end. Dear god. If you thought this was depressing, just wait until the next chapter -.- There will only be one or two more, because, quite frankly, now everything goes to hell, doesn't it? Yay for angst!


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